The Yankees at Yuattall's.
The New York
Herald, which always announces contemplated enterprises of the enemy with so much accuracy that it is believed by many to dilate them, told us a week or more ago, that
Gen. Lee was playing a rash game in removing his army from
Richmond, for that the great warrior,
Dix, would be sure to take advantage of his absence and pounce upon it. Finding this threat of no avail, the
Yankee General is now endeavoring to carry it out, to the extent at least of a demonstration.
It will not do. Not a man, not a horse, not a gun, will be withdraws from the army of
General Lee, and
Dix will not take
Richmond.
We have a force amply sufficient to drive him back, and perhaps to capture his whole command, even without the assistance of the citizens, who are armed, organized, and prepared for action.
The equanimity of the city is not, in the slightest degree, disturbed by the new demonstration, and the only fear we hear expressed is that
Dix will take counsel of his discretion and retire, before he shall have gotten too far from his gunboats.
We have it from high authority, that not only the city is in no danger, but that we are in a condition to chastise the
Yankees if they dare advance, in such a manner that they will not be in a hurry to repeat the experiment.
It is obvious that
Dix does not expect to capture
Richmond.
His whole design is to frighten the citizens to such an extent that they shall demand the protection of
General Lee's army, and thus mar the great enterprise upon which he is bent.
What that enterprise may be — whether it aims at the capture of
Washington and
Baltimore, and the disenthralled and regeneration of
Maryland--or at the invasion of
Pennsylvania, the capture of
Philadelphia, and the transfer of the war to the heart of the enemy's country — or, finally, whether its object be merely to retaliate upon the enemy a few of the barbarities he has practiced against us — we know not. But, whatever may be the ultimate design, it is obvious that
Gen. Lee's movements have stricken the whole Yankee nation with a terror, to which we never had a parallel in the
South.
Either to they have been playing a safe, and to them no doubt, a very amusing game.
They have known nothing of the horrors of war, save so much as they may have read in newspapers, or heard described by returned soldiers.
They have never known what it was to have their houses pillaged and burned, their crops destroyed, their barns and mills emptied and reduced to ashes, their cattle slaughtered in sheer wantonness, and their families insulted.
They have read of all these things as perpetrated by their soldiers against us, and so far from sympathizing with us, they have incessantly cheered on the dogs of war as they were 1st loose upon us. Now the hour of retribution has struck, and the very terror with which they are stricken demonstrates, in a manner which cannot be mistaken, the spot which they are most vulnerable, the which ought to be pressed most vigorously by our General.
Doubtless he sees it more clearly than we do, and he will not be diverted from his object by any attempt upon
Richmond which it is in the power of
Dix to make.
