We had thought that the New York
Times and
Tribune, and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, had engrossed all the military talent of the press.
It is not so, however, as will be seen by the editorial which we republish this morning from the New York
World.
These news paper
Generals certainly know a great deal more than the
Generals in the field, and we cannot imagine why
Lincoln does not dismiss
Hooker and put one of them at the head of his army.
One thing, however, the
World has guessed as we suspect, rightly in the present instance.
It is, that
General Lee intends something much more serious than a mere incursion into
Pennsylvania.
The powerful force he has with him; the skill with which be marœuvred to deceive
Hooker and cross the
Potomac without molestation; the immense stores which he has already collected; or is still collecting, all indicate an enterprise of a serious character.
What it may be we have no more means of ascertaining than the
World itself, and should we set into guessing like that paper perhaps we should miss the mark as far as it has probably done.
We cannot, in the meantime, avoid smiling when we read the imagined contingencies, in which
Hooker may get the better of
Lee, and, perhaps, "bag his army." We can only say, if
Hooker can bag
Lee he is welcome to him; but we should not be surprised to hear that
Lee had bagged
Hooker.
Throughout the whole Confederacy the highest degree of confidence is felt in
Gen. Lee. --The people feel confident that he is bent upon some enterprise which will have a most important bearing upon the of the war.--They feel assured that he, who has heretofore proved himself so prudent, so cautious, so sagacious so careful of the lives of his men, will not undertake any enterprise of great magnitude in which he does not see a very bright prospect of success.
They, therefore, await the issue of this expedition in a calm and hopeful spirit confident that if no great result be accomplished, at least no great harm will be done.
In the meantime the spectacle which is presenting itself on the other side of the
Potomac should strike the souls of all croakers which shame.
The whole population is in an agony of terror, flying before our legions, or submitting, as they advance.
Already they begin to reckon up their sins — to remember the smoking ruins of the towns their soldiers have burnt in the
South--to call to mind the numberless families reduced to beggary by the inhuman barbarities of their merciless Government.
They be to think on these things and the thought drives them to . "Is there to be retaliation," they ask, these enormities?
If there is, then lost forever." How different was it years ago, when the whole
North was pouring forth its legions for the subjugation of the
South, when all the cities of
Maryland and
Pennsylvania were filled with troops raging for the spoils of
Richmond, when to doubt that success was certain was to incur the penalty of treason.
Now, these very rebels whom they were sent to exterminate, after having beaten them in innumerable battles upon the
Southern soil, have turned the tables upon them, and are in the unbounded abundance of the
Pennsylvania Valley.
The South is, for a time at least, relieved, and the
North is bearing the whole burden of the war. Who would have dreamed of such a change two years ago?
