The Daily Dispatch: October 20, 1864., [Electronic resource]

General Grant, some months ago, informed his Yankee admirers that he had nearly settled matters with us here in Virginia — that he had killed off all the men who were capable of bearing arms — and that we were now depending for our successful resistance to his invincible legions upon such recruits as we had robbed the cradle and the grave to obtain. What quantity of truth there may have been in this allegation, we are not prepared to say; perhaps General Grant may know more of the matter than we do. But this we will venture to declare that if the majority of the recruits who are pouring in to fill up the gaps made in the ranks of General Bee be the tenants of the grave, then is the grave a much healthier locality than we had ever imagined; for a finer looking set of recruits never gave strength and security to any army that ever marched. The appearance which they present strikes every beholder. They are,. in general, the very picture of exuberant health; in general, large men, active and strong limbed. If these be, indeed, the tenants of the grave, then may we say, with peculiar point, "Oh! death, where is thy sting? Oh! grave, where is thy victory ?" If, however, these men be not denizens of the grave, but tenants of the cradle, they are extremely well grown for their age. We cannot imagine what they will be when they arrive at maturity; for many of them are six feet high already. If such be the infants of Old Virginia, what are the grown people like ? Truly, these are babies after the fashion of Fin McCoul, who was a giant twenty feet high, but passed himself off for his own infant when another giant, twice as high, came to give "him a bating."

Our recruits are not only fine looking, but they are pouring in with a rapidity that gladdens the heart of every man who loves his country, and means to stand by her. Old Virginia is far from being exhausted yet, Mr. Grant to the contrary notwithstanding. She has never been found wanting when the day of trial came, and she will not be found wanting now. The question with regard to the safety of Richmond we hold to have been already decided. Grant can no more take Richmond than he can take Constantinople. He may make his mind up to that, and to the mortification of spending the whole winter where he is without being able to budge one foot in advance, and finding himself, at the opening of spring, like a bear who has spent the cold season in a hollow, precisely where he was in the fall.

The prospects of the Confederacy underwent a momentary change for the worse in August. Since that time, the gloom has been gradually wearing away, until, at the present moment, they are brighter than they ever have been from the beginning. Grant is at a dead stand here; Price has operated, and is operating still, with such effect in Missouri that the Yankees already talk of abandoning Arkansas and confining their exertions to the redemption of the more important State; while Sherman's situation in Georgia is, to the last degree, precarious. If any of the things which are possible should happen: if Price should reconquer Missouri, and expel the Yankees from it; if Hood should capture or badly cripple Sherman; if Grant's army should suffer a great reverse here before Richmond; we should find the voice of the Yankees as loud for peace as it now is for war. So true is it, that our armies are our only peace-makers, and our successes the only exponent of the terms. Let us but effect any of these objects and we shall have peace.