Our troops in the late battles.
We have been, all our lives, devoted to that species of literature which consists in the description of battles and sieges.
Consequently the quantity we have read in this department is greatly disproportionate to the quantity we have read in all other departments put together.
We can safely over that we never read of any single feat, or any series of feats, either in ancient or modern times, that can at all compare with the exploits of our army on the
Chickahominy, during the week ending with Thursday last.
The storm of
Badajos was an achievement of unrivalled splendor at that day.--The British army has frequently, in
India, accomplished enterprises in the way of storming that appeared impossible.
But when, before, did any army ever stern, twenty miles of redoubts and entrenchments, all constructed with the utmost skill, and defended with the most obstinate pertinacity?
Our brave troops went on from redoubt to redout, and from earthwork to earthwork, without halting or looking to the right or left.
They lost heavily, it is true, but they accomplished far more than is to be looked for in the immediate results of their victory, enormous as they are. They established for themselves a name which will be of everlasting service to their country.
The
prestige of invincibility is theirs, and will remain theirs in all future time.--The moral is to the physical, says
Napoleon, in the proportion of three to one.
Their enemies, in future, will be half beaten before firing a shot.
The very terror of their name will do as much for them as their bullets and bayonets.
Even if they had not succeeded in routing the enemy at all points, they would have gained much by the incomparable bravery with which they fought.
But they did rout the enemy at all points.
This is a fact which all the lying bulletins, and all the newspaper correspondence in the world cannot succeed in suppressing.
The world can see that the enemy had a line extending from a long distance above the
Meadow Bridges in
Hanover to the
Long Bridge in
Henrico.
The world can see that all the formidable positions along that immense line have been abandoned.
The world can see that the whole route is strewed with the
debris of a broken and routed army.
The world can see that the York River Railroad is in our possession, and that the formidable position on this side of the
Chickahominy, which was to be the base of
McClellan's advance upon the city, is in our hands. --The world can see the evidences of unparalleled disaster in the ruin of wagons, destruction of commissary stores, the relinquishment of tents, the abandonment of hospitals, the capture of 10,000 prisoners, the dispersion and disorganization of whole divisions, the piles of dead abandoned to our forces, the retreat of
McClellan to
Westover, and his reliance on his gunboats, after all his braggadocio, to ensure his safety.
Yankee newspapers cannot lie the world out of its senses.
The world will see all this in spite of them all, and it will ask, if this be the fruit of
McClellan's victory, what sort of fruit would a defeat be expected to bring forth?
It may be that
McClellan may be reinforced, and make another effort.
Be it so. We are in the hands of a General who has just proved himself a master in the art of war, and who has taught his countrymen, in the last fortnight, to place the utmost confidence in his skill.
This city and the country generally feet safe as long as he is known to be at his post.
He will be found fully able to deal with any crisis that has arise.