How the Dogs howl !
The mingled emotions of terror and wrath which agitate the mind of
Yankee Doodle, are infinitely amusing.
It is quite evident that
McClellan's "change of base" does not impose upon them.--They see, clearly enough, that he has been tremendously flogged, and that his "strategic movement" was nothing less than an old-fashioned fight.
In May, he boosted that his army "had not met with a cheek," and that he meant to "push
Johnston to the wall." In July, he writes that he is in an impregnable position, and that the army is safe.
A prodigious change of position, certainly, from an advance, sweeping his adversary before him, and pressing him to his last retreat, to a stand still on the defensive.
The
Yankees can see this as plainly as we can, and they are horribly alarmed.
They have been flogged like cure and they howl accordingly.
The change of tone in the
Yankee newspapers is wonderful.
Secretary Cameron boosted last December that he had raised an army of 660,000 men. It was more, he said, than
Napoleon had done during the "Hundred Days." Everything was prepared to "crush out" the rebellion.
It could not withstand the weight of such an enormous force. --The Yankee papers took up the cry. All the arts of lying and exaggeration peculiar to that people were resorted to exalt the magnitude and strength of their armaments.
After the affairs of
Roanoke Island and
Fort Donelson, the crushing out of the rebellion was spoken of as a fact already accomplished.
Nothing could exceed the pomposity with which
McClellan's immense army was heralded on its way to glory and conquest.
But after it was beaten — after it had fled under shelter of its gunboats, with the loss of forty or fifty thousand men, it was then represented as a mere handful, and the rebels, who before were a small, disorganised mob, were described as a powerful host, numbering 217,000 or 220,000 men. Such is the way in which
Yankee Doodle accounts for his shortcomings in the military line.
Anything is better, they think, than a confession of the simple truth that our men are the better soldiers, and are always able to beat them on terms approaching equality.
Fortunately for the interest of history,
Mr. Chandler has let the truth leak out. It must be very unpalatable to Doodle, but there is no help for it,
McClellan had 120,000 men when he entered the
Peninsula, and was reinforced by 38,000 more before the late battles.
His whole force, therefore, before
Richmond, was 158,000 men. Now, we have not the faintest conception of the extent of our numbers.
We know we have a very large army — large enough to whip anything Doodle can send here.
But we do not believe it was so large as that, especially as
President Davis says our force was inferior in the late battles.
We not only whipped
Yankee Doodle's superior army, but we whipped it with all the advantage on his side of forts, redoubts, breast works, and other fortifications, equal of themselves to a reinforcement of 200,000 men. If our army could beat that army thus fortified, it can beat in the open field all the remains of
McClellan's army reinforced by the fresh levy of 300,000 which
Lincoln is calling for.
