The situation.
Gen. Lee's account of our success against the raiders is very cheering.
We did not, it is true, accomplish as much as was expected.
But then the extreme difficulty of capturing a whole body of such troops ought to be taken into consideration.
This our population are not apt to do. Men mounted on horseback, from the rapidity with which they move, and the facility with which they disperse and throw their pursuers on a false scent, afterwards rallying, and assailing distant points not threatened before, must always be hard to head.
We must, we suspect, be content with checking them on their expeditions, guarding important points, wearing them out by rapid pursuit, breaking down their horses, and killing or capturing the raiders, as far as we can.
Gen. Hampton, and the two
Lees, assisted by
Mahone, seem to have done as much as we could do, and if there is disappointment, it is because the hopes of the public were too high.
If we could kill all the horses, we could take all the men; and
scorner so, if we could kill all the men, we could take all the horses.
Neither of these is possible.
The passage of the 200,000 conscription law, without the exemption clause, alluded to in another portion of this day's issue produces neither surprise nor alarm.
It confirms the terrible losses of
Grant and
Sherman, and was, indeed, passed in view of the latter.
So at least says the New York
Herald.
Grant and
Sherman have lost, within the last two months, nearly men enough to balance the whole number raised by this law. Put them in their hands, and they will get them killed off in a very short time In the meantime the conscription of 200,000 men unconditionally, is apt to work favorably for peace in
New England.
The scoundrels there who live on it, and who have been more instrumental in keeping it alive than anybody else, will now have to shoulder arms themselves.
They cannot put it off upon the Irish and
Dutch, by paying a few hundred dollars. They must fight themselves, and being obliged to do it, they will be the loudest mouthed friends of peace in the whole Yankee States.
