What of the odds?--"Twenty Millions against Eight"
This was the policy of insurance upon which the
Yankees adventured into this war.-- "Twenty millions can whip eight," said
Hickman, of
Pennsylvania, whom
Harry Edmundson slapped and kicked for his insults to the
South in the
Capitol Square at
Washington.
Hickman paid us of the
South the compliment that we were of the same race with his people of the
North--as good, but no better; and the afore to be overcome by superior numbers.
Like all Yankees, he was full of conceit of himself and his folk, and could pay us no greater tribute, in his estimation, than to say we were all alike!
Hickman furnished the cue to all the rest.
They have all been harping on the difference in numbers as a sure sign of the result.
Boasting of the advantage they have in more numbers, they are nevertheless actively engaged in enlisting Irish and German emigrants to help them to whip us. They have, by their bribes and promises, increased the emigration from abroad very largely.
Aspiring yet above the mere numbers of good fighting men from abroad, they have sought to secure some of those great tragedians of the revolutionary dramas of the continent to help them in the play they have set upon the stage.
Garibaldi, as a star, was earnestly solicited, with not only wordy appeals, but those which are most effective with the
Yankee--pecuniary.
Never was there a case exhibiting so much national pusillanimity and meanness.
With more than two to one against us, the
Yankees are supplicating the world to come and help them to conquer us.
But what of it?
Their armies are full of foreigners.
Of the prisoners of several regiments taken recently every one were Germans!
But what of it?
Does not the very fact that these appeals for help are made show the state of the war?
With all their odds against us — with all their foreign aid, have we not defeated them in a hundred fields?
Look at the last and most brilliant of our battles.
The best appointed and largest army ever raised by
Lincoln,--fully double as large as the Confederate army under
Gen. Lee, --takes its own time, crosses where it chooses without hindrance, and takes it own battle ground.
If the scene had advantages
Hooker had the opportunity to possess them, and, no doubt, according to his best judgment, did so. Yet he is assailed by inferior numbers in his chosen position, routed, and driven back whence he came with immense loss!
Do the
Yankees desire further proof of the folly of their bold assumption that twenty millions could whip eight?
Had there not been that difference this war never would have been begun!
It is time now to modify their impudent assertion into an inquiry — viz: "Can Twenty Millions Whip Eight?"
