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The restoration of General Johnston to military duty has given great satisfaction to the country. It will impart still greater satisfaction to the army, which has the most complete confidence in his genius for command. The rank and file are, in general, the best judges of the competency of their leaders. The public at large have no such opportunity of forming correct opinions of military capacity, nor that direct and powerful interest which keeps the eyes of the soldiers open and observant. The public often changes its opinions, and the idol of one day is sometimes prostrated and trampled upon the next. The army gives no such evidence of ignorance and fickleness. When it once gives a leader its full trust, it does so upon intelligent grounds, and he retains it to the end. General Johnston has always enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the confidence and admiration of military men and of the rank and file — those noble fellows who offer up their lives freely in this contest, and who only ask that their lives shall not be uselessly thrown away by incompetent leadership. We are not prepared to say whether the means left at his disposal by the exhaustion which the army has suffered since he relinquished command will enable him to accomplish all that the public expect. We do not exact from him the performance of miracles. Still we are sure that all that military talent and energy can now accomplish will be forthcoming, and we rejoice that the Government has placed him where he may, in some degree, retrieve the misfortunes of the past. His name alone will rally again to the Confederate standard those veterans of the South who, under his guidance, would long ago have interrupted the triumphal march of Sherman through an unresisting land. It is useless to mourn over the past. Let us all practice toleration for the errors of each other, and confide in the common sincerity and patriotism. Of one thing we entertain an abiding confidence. General Johnston, if he is able to rally around him an adequate force, will assist General Sherman to discover that a march like his through the interior of a great country is no longer to be a holiday pageant and may terminate in anything but a prosperous journey to Richmond
The Daily Dispatch: February 27, 1865. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. February 27, 1865. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.
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