The Herald on Virginia affairs.
The New York
Herald has a characteristic article upon the ‘" Desperate Situation of the Secessionists of
Virginia."’ It says that ‘"‘an early movement upon
Richmond of even twenty thousand men, which can now be spared from
Washington, would snuff out secession in
Virginia,’
>"’It asserts that a large proportion of the people of
Virginia are indignant at the sneaking way in which the
State has been committed to the rebel Government of
Jeff. Davis; that the forced contributions levied by the Secession foragers from the farmers of their horses, provisions, &c., are exciting a general feeling of indignation among the honest yeomanry, which will not be satisfied with
Virginia scrip, worth to-day only thirty or forty cents on the dollar, and which, six months hence, may not be worth a sixpence on the hundred dollars. It further states that the late descent of Secession troops upon
Harper's Ferry, and the attempt of the rebels to seize the
Navy-Yard at
Norfolk, were proceedings undertaken in disregard of the injunctions of
Governor Letcher,and that their object was to precipitate the
Commonwealth into civil war, and thus stifle the voice of the people in their approaching State election.
The
Heraldfurther informs us that in
Northwestern Virginia the people are rising
en masse against secession, and are putting their opposition into a very general movement.
The
Herald then proceeds:
‘
"To save the
State, therefore, in its integrity; to save it from a war like division against itself; to save the great slaveholding section from absolute destruction, between a fire in the front and a fire in the rear; to save the people of
Eastern Virginia from a consuming war, as those of
Maryland have been saved, it is only necessary now to move a strong Government force from
Washington to
Richmond.
The Secessionists there are greatly alarmed.
Their newspaper organs betray the symptoms of a panic, which, with all their efforts to magnify their military forces, they cannot disguise.
We hope, therefore, that no time will be lost at
Washington in preparing for a Union
coup d'etatin
Virginia."
’
The
Heraldfurther states that ‘"the redoubtable
General Lee,it appears, has only one incomplete battalion under his immediate command." ’
