We do not know any feature of the late battle, the contemplation of which affords us more exquisite satisfaction than as a defeat of
General Scott.
The "bubble reputation" was never more a bubble than in his case; but as long as it floated in a serene atmosphere, propelled by the soft, flattering breezes of an admiring public, it was impossible to test its solidity.
Where is it now?
Backed by the immense resources of the
Lincoln Government, with an unlimited draft on the eighteen millions for men and money, with the best military talent of the
United States, aiding, advising and executing, with the whole disposable regular force of the
United States at his command, and with time of preparation enough to convert volunteers into regulars, and with the odds of two to one, he took the field, expecting to crush the Confederate Army as the tornado crushes the pine.
He has given it out for months that he held us in the hollow of his hand.
Telegraphic wires have been brought to
Washington, to be extended through
Virginia with the progress of his army, and the Southern Congress was not to be permitted even to assemble in this city.
We venture to say that of all the wounds which this battle has inflicted, none are as intolerable as those which have been made in the prodigious military vanity of
Lieutenant General Scott, who ought now to return to the original and correct orthography of his name, Wing-
Field, a name much more suggestive of the
battle at Manassas than Win-
Field.
We shall not be surprised if the
Republican cohorts at once decapitate
Lieut. Gen. Scott. The popular vengeance will demand a victim, and as they are not likely to obtain one at present on this side of the
Potomac, they will make
Scott responsible and depose him from the chief command.
A large portion of the Republican party has long been complaining of him, and this defeat will give them a power which will drive him from his position, unless he retrieves himself within few days.
This he cannot do; the men who have just routed the flower of his army are ready with increased efficiency and determination to meet him again, and desire no greater benediction than that he himself should lead the invaders in person.
But the probability is that he will not have the honor even of dying upon the soil of his native
Virginia.
Disowned and abhorred by the
South, he will be in disgrace at the
North, and this will be a worse punishment than death.
If anything could enhance the mortification and the rage of
Scott at his late defeat, it will be the intelligence that his old official master, the former
Secretary of War,
Jefferson Davis, son-in-law of
Zachary Taylor, was at
Manassas on this eventful day. What a reflection!
What a retribution!
We doubt whether of all the bedeviled spirits in
Washington there is one at this moment who suffers such pangs as
Gen. Scott. Even
Gen. Wool, whose feelings doubtless at
Gen. Scott's defeat are too strong for utterance, must pity the sorrows of the poor old man.
