The war News.
All is quiet on the north side and likely so to continue.
The hostile armies have so strongly entrenched themselves and fortified their positions that it would seem sheer madness for either to attack the other in front.
The amount of felled timber
cheraur de frise, stumps, ditches and embankments, that either would have to travel over in making an assault, appears sufficient to make it an absolutely hopeless undertaking.
It has been the common belief that
Grant, whether
Butler's canal were finished or not, would, before the 4th of November, attempt something as a card for
Lincoln's re-election; but it strikes us now that he will rather be content to rest
Lincoln's chances on
Sheridan's successes in the
Valley than run the risk of spoiling the game by an unsuccessful move on the
Richmond lines.
This, however, is mere speculation.
There stand the hostile armies, in some places five hundred, in others not one hundred, yards apart.
They may remain in their respective positions all winter, (
Grant having fought it out on this line all summer,) or any morning or night a collision may be brought about.
We mentioned yesterday that the
Yankees were busily engaged at some work behind a thick clump of pines northwest of
Fort Harrison, about two hundred and fifty yards distant from our lines. --Their business at this place is still unexplained.
Some think they are mining; but the great distance from our front forbids the idea.
They are, most probably, as we before suggested, throwing up a line of earthworks; perhaps constructing a redoubt and planting mortar batteries.
We are glad to be able to announce that the eighty-six of our prisoners put by
Butler to labor in Dutchgap, under our fire, have been removed.
When
Mr. McRae went to
Butler's headquarters last Sunday, he was informed by the Beast that they had been withdrawn from the gap and sent north, so soon as he, the Beast, learned that the
Yankee negro captives had been withdrawn from our fortifications.
The truth about these Yankee negroes is this: Eighty of them, at their own suggestion, were taken out of Castle Thunder and put to work on a part of our lines not two miles from the city, and much more than two miles beyond the range of the
Yankee guns.
The moment
General Lee was apprised of the fact that these negroes had been put to work, he had them sent back to prison, and they were returned to the prison before any communication was received from
Butler on the subject.
This being the plain, unvarnished truth of this matter, will, on that account, be repudiated by the
Yankees; but we state it for the information of our own people.
From the Valley.
There is no change in the position of either army at last advices.
The enemy are completing, so far as they can do so, their work of destruction and pillage.
No campaign of the war has furnished a list of atrocities to be compared to those committed by
Sheridan.
A private letter from a lady states that, in retaliation for the death of
Lieutenant Meigs,
twenty-one houses were burned.
In Rockingham county alone three hundred barns filled with grain were burned, and at least five hundred negroes were driven off. --From mountain to mountain, in this once loveliest of
Virginia's valleys, desolation reigns; the blackness of conflagration has taken the place of happy homesteads, and the ground is crisped and withered on the play-ground of now homeless little ones.
Yet, with all this, a statement appears in a Northern paper that while a Federal soldier was engaged in the duty of barn-burning "
he was murdered in cold blood by some Confederate soldiers."
No Confederate blood has "run cold" since the commencement of this accursed war save at the recital of deeds such as are committed by
Sheridan and others of like stamp; and God forbid that our bitterest hatred should ever abate towards a foe whose cruelties and atrocities were never surpassed.
In the battle in the
Valley we captured a large amount of valuable medical supplies, (nearly all
Sheridan had,) and they were all brought off in safety.
Brigadier-General Battle, of
Alabama, was wounded in the knee.
He has been brought to
Richmond and is at Howard's Grove Hospital.
General Ramseur was in one of the ambulances captured by the enemy.
General Archer died in this city on Monday night. He was a native of
Maryland and a gallant officer.
