Grant's New Project.
We published yesterday, from the New York
Sunday Mercury,
Grant's scheme for "crushing out" the rebellion.
He has even fixed the day. On the 4th day of next July the fate of the
Confederacy is to be sealed.
On that day all Yankeedom is to hold a grand assembly to rejoice over the subjugation of the
South.
Grant explains how he means to accomplish all this.
It is to be done simply by marching one army of 100,000 men on
Richmond via
Abingdon and
Lynchburg, and another of the same force on
Atlanta.--The
Mercury makes no allowance whatever for the possibility of failure.
Grant is to march from
East Tennessee.
His success is to be uninterrupted.
He is to take
Lynchburg.
The whole population north of
James river is to clear out and betake themselves to
North Carolina.
Richmond is to be starved out and to surrender at discretion.--In the meantime
Thomas, never meeting with a reverse, of course is to enter
Atlanta, and take
Charleston and
Savannah in the rear.
Everything is to be over by the fourth of July, and that auspicious day is to witness the "old flag," the emblem of more disgrace than ever tarnished any standard the world ever saw, is to wave in triumph, gridiron, buzzard, and all, over the whole country from the
Potomac to the
Rio Grande.
Then is to be witnessed that great consummation so eloquently described by
General Wigfall in the Senate the other day. "We are engaged, " said that eloquent
Senator, "in such a conflict as the world never saw. By a misnomer we speak of this 'Revolution,' and compare it with that of '76.' There is no comparison whatever.
If we had failed then, we should still have been under the best Government the world had then seen.
We should have been under a Government that secured to us the trial by jury, &c. A half dozen persons, if so much, would have been executed, and there would have been an end of it. But if we fail now?
Has any man in or out of the army considered what confiscation and subjugation mean?
what is comprehended and signified by those terms?
Confiscation means to have no house to cover the head, no bed whereon to lie — to have nothing.
Subjugation means a negro guard in every house and a provost marshal at every cross- road, with no right to visit a neighbor, no right to visit the house of God, without a permit from a Yankee provost marshal, to be handed to a negro guard."
To this state, according to
Gen. Grant and the
Sunday Mercury, we are to be reduced on the 4th day of July next.
But it affords us pleasure to say that the
Mercury is not infallible.
On Sunday, the 20th September last, it spoke exactly of
Rosecrans's undoubted success as it now speaks of
Grant's. On that same day
Rosecrans was utterly defeated at
Chickamauga, and would have been anbihilated but for the good natured forbearance of our
Generals.
Of one thing we are assured — that we have on our master-rolls at this very moment men enough to annihilate
Grant and his army.
But the larger portion of them are disgracefully straggling or tarrying at home, and but too many of the people are harboring and encouraging them.
We hesitate not to say that we have
now on the muster roll not a man under half a million, and this is all the
Yankees expect to have when they shall have received their new recruits next spring.
And yet, shameful as it is, we are bound to confess that we have scarcely ever met them in battle when they were not greatly our superior in numbers.
And it is all owing to the people of the country, who encourage straggling and deserting by harboring stragglers and deserters.
What do the people mean?
Are they not aware that they are imperilling the cause by harboring these men?
Do they wish to be subjugated?
Do they wish their property to be confiscated?
Do they want a negro guard in their houses and negro sentinels at their gates?--Do they not see that when they harbor deserters they are bringing this state of things upon them?
But there is no use in remonstrating.--Congress is about to pass a severe law against harboring deserters.
We only wish it was even more severe, and we hope it will be faithfully executed.
