more and more clamorous. Exciting appeals to popular feeling were soon followed by open aspersions and denunciations of Gen. Scott. And finally, with a presumption and insolence unheard of, a leading journal, assuming command of the army, issued and reiterated the order, "On to Richmond.'

While widely spread newspapers were thus weakening the Administration by assaults upon its Commanding-General, his embarrassments were aggravated by the persistent hostility and every-day aspersions of the Postmaster General, whose brother, a prominent member of Congress, assailed him from the stump.

It is not true, however, as has been averred, that General Scott was constrained to hazard this battle by the President. Between the President and, with one exception, the Cabinet and General Scott, there have been a mutual regard and confidence.

I will not now stop to consider details or criticize acts. The major blunder includes all the minor ones. There should have been no general engagement until we were in the field with an army strong enough to overwhelm and crush out rebellion. There are other points at which we could be advantageously and successfully occupied.

army of Manassas was reinforced by that from Winchester. Then, surely, the conflict was too unequal. With all the conditions and circumstances so changed, General McDowell should have taken the responsibility of disobeying his orders. The reason would have justified him in the judgment of the Government and people.

Meanwhile Congress assembled. Senators But even if it were excusable to assault an and representatives, with more zeal than army equal in numbers to our own, in its knowledge, caught up and reiterated the cry, chosen position behind its intrenchments, the "On to Richmond." The impatient Congress-purpose should have been abandoned when the men were leading and influential. They waited upon the President to complain of the inactivity of the army, and upon General Scott, urging him "On to Richmond." Army bills, prepared with deliberation by Senator Wilson, (in accordance with the views of the Government,) were emasculated by the House Military Committee, of which Mr. Blair is Chairman. The President and his Cabinet had reason to apprehend-if not the censures of Congress-the failure of measures essential to the prosecution of the war, unless the Tribune order of "On to Richmond" was obeyed.

But the order of "On to Richmond" was obeyed, and where does it leave us? Where we were three months ago, with a harder conflict on our hands, and a dismal, if not doubtful future. The "On to Richmond" dictators have added another year to the war, an hundred millions of dollars to its cost, and opened graves for fifteen or twenty thousand more soldiers.

And now the sensation journals began to disparage the strength and courage of the rebel army. "The rebels will not fight!" "The cowards will run!" &c., &c., appeared in flaming capitals over flash paragraphs. The whole And what have we gained? Alas, too little popular mind was swayed by these frenzied ap- for such a fearful expenditure of time, treasure, peals. A movement upon Manassas was uni- blood, and reputation. We have learned, what versally and blindly demanded. Passions and few doubted, that our army is all that is expectanimosities, kindred to those which once del-ed of it; that our men fought with the courage uged France in blood, were being excited. of veterans; that we may always, and under all The tyranny of the press, the denunciations of circumstances, rely on them. We have learned, a Cabinet minister, and the impetuosity of a | dozen members of Congress excited the masses, "moved" Gen. Scott "from his proprieties." For once in his life his purposes were thwarted -for once "his mind became the mind of other men."

The result has shown that it was a fatal weakness. And yet who knows what would have been the effect of an adherence to his plan? The New York Tribune was educating millions to distrust the wisdom of the Administration and the fidelity of the commanding generals. Every day emboldened its audacity every rail and wire disseminated its treason -and every hour augmented the popular discontent. Congress, though its session opened auspiciously, began to falter. The Blairs, one in the Cabinet and the other in Congress, were organizing the "On to Richmond" faction. To have resisted these demands would have overthrown the Administration, and might have destroyed the Government. "Madness ruled the hour," and a battle at Manassas, right or wrong, became not a military but a political "necessity."

what was also too well known, that the army was in many instances indifferently officered. We have learned, too, the importance and necessity of discipline. Effective troops, however excellent the material, cannot be found in workshops, the cornfields, or the cities. They must have military training, without which every "On to Richmond" movement will prove a failure.

Though we have encountered a great and disastrous check-though we are pained and humiliated-we possess the means and the energy to retrieve all, if these means henceforth are wisely employed. I may in a future letter indicate how, in my judgment, these means should be employed. -Albany Evening Journal.

SOUTHERN PRESS ON THE BATTLE.

It would be a very difficult task to review the various accounts current in this city and along the railroad to Manassas, of the great battle which was fought on the 21st inst., in the vicinity of Manassas Junction and Centreville,

and to reduce them to an orderly and consistent shape. Indeed, the rationale of few of the world's memorable battles has been fully comprehended or stated, except after years of calm reflection and diligent investigation by the historian, the statesman, and the strategist. It was sixteen years before the Romans acquired a wholesome knowledge of the strategy of Hannibal. The same period was scarcely adequate to instruct the Generals of Austria, Russia, England, and Prussia in regard to the secret of Napoleon's success. It need not be surprising then if the Confederate victory of the 21st shall long remain a dark, dreadful mystery to our enemies, and if numbers of our own people shall for some time entertain most fantastic and illogical notions concerning it. To one, how ever, who has been closely observing military operations on the Potomac for two months past, there is no reason why such a result, though so full of glory and so profoundly gratifying, should appear either surprising or mysterious.

I will not here recapitulate details which have been given you by telegraphic correspondents. I possess no facts of importance touching the actual battle beyond those which have been communicated to you through the telegraph. But information from that source is confined almost exclusively to a brief statement of results, leaving the reader to get at causes and consequences as best he may. The preliminaries of the present battle as well as its probable consequences are of the utmost interest, and to them I shall mainly address myself.

to administer a signal repulse to the entire mass of the largest army which General Scott was able to send against him from Washington. But it would have been by a victory bought at a terrible sacrifice of what the South should most assiduously economize, the precious lives of her noble defenders. As it was, one of the most brilliant victories of the age was achieved with a loss of life almost incredible, when the weight of the enemy's column and the length of the battle are considered. The enemy seemed to stake the issue of the day on turning our flank on the left. It was then that Johnston, after having baffled Patterson, as Blucher baffled Grouchy, did more than was done by Blucher at Waterloo. The centre led by Davis, the right commanded by Beauregard, did the rest. The enemy was exhausted, appalled, tumultuously routed by the inflexible resistance, the deadly fire, the terrible charges with which their attack was met. And yet but a small portion of our forces at and near Manassas Junction were actually engaged. Perhaps there were at no time as many as twenty thousand of them under fire or in sight of the enemy, while it is possible that double that number of the enemy's total army of about seventy thousand were brought into action.

It is rumored, and believed by many persons, that General Patterson and General Scott were on the field of battle. But neither, in my opinion, was present. It would certainly have been very strange in General Patterson to come upon the field without any portion of his command, and there is no reason for believing that any Two weeks ago it was evident that both portion of his command was engaged in the Johnston and Patterson were influenced, in battle or near at hand. As for General Scott, their manœuvres, by considerations connected though the movement against General Beaurewith the line of Manassas. Jolinston desired to gard may have been made according to his oroccupy Patterson in the Shenandoah valley, and der, I doubt whether that order was given in Patterson desired to occupy Johnston in the same accordance with his deliberate views of policy. region. Each aimed to force the other into a po- Precipitated into the measure, as I believe, by sition from which it would be impossible to ex- the clamor of the politicians at Washington, and tricate himself and participate in operations be- by the blood-thirsty rage of the Black Repubtween Washington and Manassas Junction. In lican Press, he was quite willing to remain at this game Patterson was out-generalled. John- a distance, and leave the immediate responsi ston excelled his antagonist alike in boldness and bility of failure, if the measure should fail, with caution, in vigilance and activity. Keeping his his subordinate officers, while ready to approcommunication with the Manassas line intact,priate the credit of success to himself if the he could not be deceived by Patterson's feint measure should succeed. demonstrations, but just so soon as the latter had fallen back toward the Potomac, he set out at once, from Winchester, to join Gen. Beauregard's column near Manassas Junction, marching 18 miles to Strasburg, and proceeding thence, about 50 miles, by railroad. He arrived not an hour too soon, with 20 regiments. His men had one night to rest before waking to meet the bloodiest fury of the battle on the left of Stone Bridge.

I will not say that Gen. Johnston's presence was absolutely necessary to turn the scale in our favor. I firmly believe that General Beauregard's force was considerable enough, its disposition skilful enough, its defences strong enough, its men and officers determined enough,

It is not easy to believe that General Scott, if left to pursue his own plans, would stake the issue of a campaign on a battle fought under the circumstances of that of the 21st. Two months ago he committed a mistake in halting at Alexandria, after crossing the Potomac, instead of pushing forward briskly toward Richmond. But that mistake sprang from excess of prudence, and it is not reasonable to deduce from such a mistake another arising from the opposite fault of rashness. For rash it certainly was to attack General Beauregard on ground which he himself had selected and elaborately fortified. Political considerations must have prevailed over military considerations when General Scott consented to the attack, without

the support of McClellan from the West and of Patterson from the North. It was a fatal departure from the anaconda policy which he had previously been pursuing. The consequence is the backbone of the serpent is broken. The advance of McClellan's column in Western Virginia is rendered inconsequential, and if it advance far into the mountains its destruction is inevitable; while Butler at Fort Monroe is constrained to moderate his exorbitant military ambition to the humble office of performing garrison duty.

were but striplings; on the 21st thousands of them were heroes; and another battle will find thousands of them hardy and invincible veterans. Nor need we fear that our Generals will fail us. Davis, Beauregard, Johnston-it cannot be said of them, to-morrow or the next day, that their spirit has abated and their vision dulled-that they have

-hearts worn out with many wars, And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars. -New Orleans Delta, July 28.

THE MORAL OF MANASSAS.

There is a danger we fear that the Southern mind, intoxicated with its exultations over the recent great victory of our arms at Manassas, may over-estimate the present advantage as well as the ultimate consequences of that brilliant achievement.

Opinions differ here materially as to what will or should be the war policy of the Confederate Government after the Manassas victory. Many think that the victory should be instantly followed up by a dash upon Washington and a rush into Maryland. They say that we have forborne from the aggressive long enough to Certainly there can be no difference of opinconvince the most stupid and most deluded of ion as to its having proved a God-send to the the Northern people that we did not aim at cause of Southern independence and true conconquest; that we had no wish to destroy the stitutional liberty. It has greatly strengthened National Capital, or to overturn the Govern- the confidence of our people in the ability of ment which they were supporting, but that our their government to maintain itself, even at the only desire was to be let alone and to live un-point of the bayonet, against the marauding der a government of our own choice. It is time now, they think, to set about conquering a peace by carrying the war into the enemy's country, since it is evident we cannot secure peace by scrupulously remaining within our own. There are others, however, who argue that it is best to prove at once our forbearance and our invincibility, by pausing after every victory and giving the enemy an opportunity to profit by the "sober second thought." These last are for letting Washington alone, and advancing no further than the Potomac, from the belief that an attack upon the National Capital and an invasion of territory beyond the limits of the Confederate States would cause the same universal outburst and uprising in the North as was witnessed on the capture of Sumter. Such views are plausible, but they are totally without practical value.

The North has explicitly, in word and act, challenged to a fight to the death, and forced us to the deadly issue. It has shown no repentance under frequent failures to overpower us in battle; and much less has it exhibited magnanimity under the encouragement of partial success. We must disable it from harm, or put our power to do so beyond question, before it will be ready either to tender or accept the olive branch. The enemy's people, in my opinion, will be far from satisfied with their trial of strength on the 21st. They will impute the defeat to any thing but intrinsic superiority in our army. They call Scott a dotard, McDowell an incapable, Patterson a coward, and distributing the responsibility for the defeat among the three, confidently predict a different result under the generalship of McClellan. Be it so. Let them bring their highest military genius, their choicest soldierly prowess against us, and we need have no misgivings of the final event. Yesterday thousands of our soldiers

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legions of Hessian soldiery who have been precipitated by the enemy upon our sacred soil. It has impaired the energies of the "old wreck" of the Federal Government, and has so far annihilated the confidence of its subjects in the final success of its boasted scheme of subjugation, as to work the most serious detriment to the national credit-which, according to the recent acknowledgment of a congressman, has already failed. It has given a prestige to the young republic of the South, just emerging, like Venus, in all the perfection of her beauty, from the foaming sea of political convulsion, which will put to naught the vaunting assertion of Northern superiority, and perhaps decide the question of foreign recognition which now trembles in the hesitating balance held by the hands of European powers. In addition to these there may be even other, though less important results flowing from it.

But to suppose that our independence is an accomplished fact, without other like desperate struggles, is palpable absurdity, the entertainment of which will prove a delusion and a snare. It is true that the forces of the enemy, outnumbering our own more than two to one, were utterly routed, and driven into a retreat styled by themselves both disgraceful and cowardly. But the defeat is not such as to turn the reckless politicians, who manage this movement, from the attempted execution of their direful purpose. Their pride has been sorely wounded, and their passion of revenge stimulated to the performance of new deeds of infamy. At any sacrifice of life or of the people's money, they will rally their routed forces and attempt with still greater desperation to retrieve their lost fortunes. Relying upon the brute force of mere numbers, the enemy are evidently determined to risk other engagements, perhaps of greater magnitude, if for

-Memphis Appeal, July 30.

Doc. 1111.

nothing else than the gratification of their | MUST FIGHT! I REPEAT IT, SIRS, WE MUST malignity, or the palliation of their disgrace FIGHT!" now so manifest to the eyes of foreign powers. The vast preparations that are now being made, and the great caution taken in the efficient organization of the army for the future, with the unceremonious dismissal of incompetents, are but a few of the indications to foreshadow their increased, yet fruitless determination.

It may be that the half million of men voted Mr. Lincoln by his obsequious parliament may not all be obtained, and certain it is that the five hundred millions of money will come in very tardily, and at great sacrifices on the part of the Government, if at all. But it is quite as evident that men and money will be secured for the prosecution of this atrocious war, even though the one be obtained by drafting, and the other by direct taxation and forced loans. We may expect, and must be prepared to encounter, an army of at least four hundred thousand men, who will be gathered at various points upon the borders of our Confederacy, seeking to force an entrance with the bayonet in less than ninety days. Our preparations for the vast campaign, unequalled by any of modern times, and scarcely overshadowed by Bonaparte's into Russia, must be commensurate with its magnitude and the importance of confronting it with successful resistance.

THE DARK DAY.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

THERE probably never was a military disaster, of which the importance was more unduly magnified, than that of the 21st of July in front of Manassas. After a severe and protracted encounter between the two armies, which, it is admitted, was about to terminate in a drawn battle, if not even in favor of the United States, the Confederates were largely reinforced, a panic arose on the part of the teamsters and civilians following in the train of our forces, the alarm gradually spread to the troops, a retreat commenced, and ended in a general rout. The losses of the enemy in the mean time were equal to our own; he was unable to pursue our flying regiments, and they reoccupied, unmolested, the positions from which (from political reasons, and against the judgment of the Commander-in-chief) the premature advance was made. A month has since elapsed; the army of the United States has passed through the terrible ordeal of the return of the three months men, which began simultaneously with the disaster of the 21st of The population of the eleven States, compris- July, and in spite of the disheartening effect of ing the Confederate Government, according to that disaster and the confidence it was so well the census of 1860, is just 5,581,649. A levy calculated to inspire on the part of the Confedof ten per cent. of this amount, which has al-erates, our military position is stronger now ways been regarded as not only practicable but extremely light for military purposes, would give us an army of five hundred and fifty-eight thousand men. Leaving out the disaffected portions of the country, where recruiting might prove somewhat difficult, we may safely calculate on raising 400,000 men with the greatest facility, for it is estimated that we have more than 200,000 armed and equipped in the field. The Confederate Government should at once exercise its energies in this work. While we can readily whip the enemy in an open field and fair fight, where they do not outnumber us in a proportion greater than three to two, we must not place ourselves in such a condition as to render the result the least doubtful. To make assurance doubly sure, it is our bounden duty to meet the invaders man for man, and by the adoption of a vigorous and aggressive policy make this war a brief one. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, is the maxim that should guide us through this revolution.

But, to resume: The point which we most desire to impress upon the minds of the people is the necessity of being prepared yet for the worst. No delusive hope need be entertained for a solitary moment that a peace has been conquered by the result at Manassas. It is only the entering wedge to such a consummation. We may still with propriety advise with Patrick Henry, when he eloquently exclaimed, “WE

than it was before the inauspicious event.

Had this occurred in a campaign in Europe, where it is not the custom to cloud the outskirts of an advancing army with a host of curious non-combatants, even if the military retreat had taken place at all, (which without the civilians' panic might not have happened.) the account given of the day would probably have been that which Mr. Russell, while ignorant of the disaster behind, gave to the affrighted fugitives whom he encountered toward its close: "Oh, it's a drawn battle. The troops are reoccupying the position from which they started in the morning." Unhappily the next night's mails were loaded with accounts, not of course intentionally exaggerated, but written under the influence of the same panic which had indefinitely aggravated, if it did not cause, the disaster. From the necessity of the case, the civilians being in the rear of the forces engaged, the disorderly retreat, and finally the panic rout of the forces was all of which they could have been the eye-witnesses, and in their accounts, accordingly, these disastrous events occupy the chief place, to the exclusion of the military operations of the day. These operations extended over a space of several miles, and the commanding officers themselves were unable for some days to make a full and accurate report of them.

During my residence in London, I had sev

eral very interesting conversations with the Duke of Wellington on the subject of the battle of Waterloo. One of them took place in the ball-room at Devonshire House, as we stood watching the dancers. He informed me that he had lately received a letter from a person about to write an account of the great battle, asking some information as to its details. "I answered him," said the Duke, "that by comparing and studying the almost innumerable printed descriptions of the battle, English, French, and German, a man of sense could acquire a better knowledge of it at the present day than any body, even the commander-inchief, could get at the time, from personal observation. Suppose any one," he added, "should ask us to-morrow morning to describe the position and movements of all the groups of dancers in this small space before us, we should not be able to report any thing beyond what concerned a few of the more prominent personages on the floor. Much less can any individual observation extend to the detailed movements of numerous bodies of men extended over several miles." If such was the modest reserve with which so consummate a chief | as Wellington habitually spoke of his personal knowledge of the details of the great event of his life-the memorable engagement fought under his own orders-how little can be expected of the most intelligent and active spectator, who necessarily occupies a post of safe observation, who is borne away in a tumultuous retreat, and writes a hurried report by the next mail!

alarm," says Alison, "spread like wildfire from rank to rank; the Guard even was shaken; the victors for a moment doubted the fate of the day. The ranks presented the appearance of a general rout, and yet the whole was occasioned by a single squadron of the Archduke John's cavalry, which had been far advanced toward Wagram, and seeking to regain, as he retired, the road to Presburg, had cut down some French marauders in one of the villages on the east of the field." Such was the effect of panic on the veterans of Napoleon, reposing in his presence after a mighty victory!

Justly does the same historian exclaim, “Experience in every age has demonstrated, that, after the protracted excitement of a great battle, the bravest soldiers become unstrung, and at such a moment the attack of a few fresh troops often produces the most extraordinary results. It is this which has so often chained success to the effort of a reserve in the close of an obstinately disputed day; which made Kellerman's charge at Marengo snatch victory from the grasp of the triumphant Austrians; and the onset of Sir Hussey Vivian's brigade, on the flank of the old guard at Waterloo, overthrow at once the military fabric of the French empire!"

But it will be said, Gen. McDowell's army was not only worsted, it fled in wild disorder from the field. I apprehend most defeated armies do that. The Roman veterans of the army of Pompeius did it at the battle of Pharsalia, and when those of them who had escaped to the neighboring mountain capitulated the There is reason to think that, though the next day, they threw down their arms, and United States forces engaged on the 21st of wept as they begged for their lives. A greater July under almost every conceivable disadvan- than Pompeius was vanquished at Waterloo; tage (raw troops to a great extent, whose term but the French writers all but unanimously of service was expiring, coming under fire for claim that they had the advantage till the arthe first time, after a weary march beneath a rival of the Prussian reinforcement at the close blazing sun, contending on strange ground with of the day. Then, says the English historian fresh opponents sheltered by field-works, that of the battle, "the whole French army became had been in course of construction for weeks)—one mass of inextricable confusion. The chausée nothing happened beyond the average ill-luck of unsuccessful battles. If such battles, instead of being described from carefully returned official returns, were habitually narrated in glowing newspaper reports from the first impressions of civilians who have hovered in the rear of the army, they would, I apprehend, in most cases exhibit similar scenes of panic and disorder.

After the fate of Wagram was decided by the retreat of the Archduke Charles, and Napoleon had retired to rest for the night, he was roused by an alarm which seemed of the most formidable character. The rear of his victorious army was thrown into confusion. Artillery, baggage-wagons, stragglers, and camp followers fled in disorder toward the Danube. The plain was covered with fugitives, the entrance to the bridges was blocked up with carriages, and many, even after crossing the river, continued their flight, and never halted till they were safe within the walls of Vienna. "The

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was like the scene of an immense shipwreck, covered with a vast mass of cannon, caissons, carriages, baggage, arms, and articles of every kind. All the efforts of the guard to stem the flight or arrest the progress of the victors were fruitless. They were swept away by the torrent, which streamed in resistless force over the whole plain. Never had such a ront been witnessed in modern war. *** *Before the pursuit ceased, from the inability of the British through absolute exhaustion to continue it, 150 pieces of cannon, 350 caissons, and 6,000 prisoners had been captured; and of the vast French army, that morning so brilliant, not two companies were to be found together. * * The Prussians continued the pursuit during the whole night. Seven times the wearied French, ready to drop down, formed bivouacs; seven times they were roused by the dreadful sound of the Prussian trumpet, and obliged to continue their flight without intermission. Such was the fatigue, that the greatest part of the