Public sentiment.
The elasticity of the
Southern mind is wonderful beyond all conception.
It rebounds from the presure of dinester like an India rubber , which bounces but the higher the hardler it is thrown against the earth.
It has already recovered from the misfortune of New Orlean, is firmer, more collected, more beyond faller of hope than ever before.
This we gather from all our exchanges, so far as they have come in, and from all the conversations we have had with persons coming from the country and other States, and with our own fellow-citizens.
Our people are not in the least daunted by the reverse at New Orleans, not do they consider it as at all impairing their chances of ultimate success.--Whatever of inconvenience or distrees it may come, they are fully prepared to encounter, and would be ware they ten times as great as they are likely to prove.
They think no more of commission now than they did when the intelligence of
Manassas first reached their camp.
This is the true spirit of our revolutionary forefathers, who thought no more of submitting the day after a great defeat than they did the day after a great victory.
It is the spirit which leads to freedom, triumphing ever all odds, and cheerfully encountering all dangers.
The effect upon our brave armies in the field will be identically the same.
There have been moments of despondency among those not in the camp.
But the soldiers have never participated in it. Persuaded of their ability to beat the enemy, whenever brought into contect with him upon a field even reasonably fair, their whole minds have been bent upon the scenes before them.
They have had no time to despond, and if they had had ever so much, they would not have desponded.
The rule with them has been to obey orders, and to fight the enemy when commanded.
Beyond this they do not generally look.
The
Yankees, doubtlesss, think as they thought after Donslson, that the ‘"rebellion is crushed."’ It is perhaps as well for them to think so. We would not instill a different opinion if we could.
Yet they dare not venture beyond the reach of their gunboats, and have never been met in a pitched battle that they were not defeated.
Shiloh took place after
Donelson.
What is to follow New Orleans?
We commend the spirit of our countrymen to the admiration of mankind.
As long as it continues to exist, there is no danger of subjugation.
It is exactly the spirit that is needed most.
It is the spirit that will command the issue of the war. No matter what disasters we may encounter, if this spirit continue to us, we must be successful in the end Let it be recollected that they have not yet beaten our armies, and that until these armies shall have been destroyed, there will have been step made in advance by the enemy.
