Grant Proposes a long campaign.
The jubilant
Yankees —— so jubilant upon the first outgiving of
Stanton's telegraph about the fight near Germanna — have had a sort of shower-bath from subsequent oracles, emanating from the "Giant." In one of them he declares "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer!" The
Yankees had inferred from the elaborate preparation and the ingenious combinations for the campaign that the work of capturing the hated city was to be — according to their favorite idea of economy of both time and money--"short, sharp, and decisive." We were to be cut off from all communication with the country — our armies for local defence were to be defeated rapidly in detail — raiders were to destroy the subsistence accumulated for the city and for the main army of the
Confederacy —
Butler was to occupy
Petersburg and invest or take
Richmond if he could — while
Grant was to run over
Lee, by mere force of overwhelming numbers, and take
Richmond by storm if
Butler should leave it for him. There was indeed a Yankee deluge to sweep this devoted State and submerge this hated city.--The waters had been accumulated, and the floodgates were to be opened from many points at once, and there was no hope, no chance of escape, for we poor rebels, from their raging and overwhelming force.
The gates were hoisted, the floods came, and dashed against our bulwarks with all their power, and were resisted and repelled!
A few days dissipated all the calculations of the boastful nation that had concentrated its mighty resources for the final overthrow of the
South.
The waves dashed out their fury and the flood was checked.
Lee stood like
Gibraltar towering above the storm that broke at his feet; and
Grant, seated amidst the wreck of his broken columns, gnashes his teeth in disappointment and rage, and swears to fight it out on the line he started upon "If it takes all summer." The Giant certainly rivals the great "Fe Fo Fum" in his anger; like him, he has smelt blood; but unlike him, it is more of his own blood than anybody else's.
When we consider the nature of the original proposition — the original grand scheme for the taking of
Richmond — its vast extent and its promised suddenness and irresistibleness — this whittling of it down to a three months labor by only one of the several lines that threatened us, is certainly a lame and impotent conclusion!
We might have reasonably supposed that had there been three or more Richmonds, the Giant and his auxiliary Beasts would have had stomach for them all. And now that we find that even the solitary city of the name is, not devoured, we may breathe a little deeper and live for a while longer, possibly for a few warm summer months.
Nay, may we not hope that, as we have a "giant," there may be also a "giant killer," as there always was in times when there were "giants?"
