The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1861-06-29

VIM deg Hights
This question begins 70 be asked with anxiety
on this side Of the Atlantic, with curiosity on
the other. The /" Confederates cannot have
less than Two Hundred thousand men in arms
to-day, of whom over One Hundred Thousand
confront the Union volunteers on the sacred
soil Of virgisiA Before the majestic uprising
Of The Nation, you might have inferred from
their buster that the followers Of jeff were con-
cerned only for their apprehended shortncss Of
legs or of vino, that might disable them from
oyertaking the routed, panic-stricken, homes yard
racing columns Of the Uni0nists. Their Secrc-
tary Of War proclaimed on the fall Of Fl. Sum-
ter, that JEFF. l. Company would have Washing
ton by the LIST Of May, then fortnight ahead.
Regiments started at once from every rebel
State, declaring and confidently expecting that
they would scarcely halt before they should biv-
ouac in the pleasant grounds Of the Capitol, and
spread their blankets In the East Room Of the
White House. By the goth of May, the armed
rebels within thirty miles Of Washington out
numbered the Unionists who confronted them,
and there has not probably been week since
in which the traitor chiefs could not have assail
ed the defenders Of the Federal Metropolis with
q force superior in numbers, in artillery and in
|
even shown themselves in front OF our entrench-
ments. They threatened to do something ter
rible if the '.sacred soil was invaded" yet
the Unionist have occupied and still occupy por-
tons of Virginia from Chesapeake Bay to the
mouth of the Kanawha, and have penetrated by
Wheeling and Parkersburg to Grafton and Cum
berland without serious opposition. For weeks,
from ten to twenty five thousand patriot soldiers
occupied Alexandria and its vicinity without in
trcnchments or other defenses, scattered over a
line Of ten miles, exposed to and expecting at
tack on at least equal terms but no Beauregard
or Lee has ever approached them so nearly MS
even to reconnoiter them; yet all the world
knows that Washington, Alexandra and their
vicinity actually swarm with secession spies and
that not a regiment crosses the Potomac without
the fact and its new position being known at the
rebel headquarters 30 soon as well spurred horses
can carry the intelligence thither. The rebels
are ready enough to fight at an advantage Of
three or four to one, or behind intrenchments
bristling with artillery yet unassaiable in front
| or flank; they are clever at setting traps and
contriving dead-falls but when it comes to
straightout, hand-to hand fighting on open
ground and with equal forces they are not there.
They have had at least dozen chances to fight
pitch battles with equal advantages, and they
have not improved one of them. Yet all know
that their military chest is empty, their supplies
precarious and limited their soldiers clad and
worse shod and their need of a brilliant victory
most urgent. Then why don't they try to win
one!
We answer-Because fighting is not to their
taste, and is something they had never counted
on. They mistook the North entirely in the
outset of their rebellion, supposing that we only
needed bullying to render US perfectly docile
Envoy Faulkener IA Virgnian) officially assured
the French Government that secession would not
be forcibly opposed. The robbers of Custom
Houses, Mints, Sub-Treasuries, Arsenals, Armo-
ries, &c, from San Antonio to Harper's Ferry,
evidently supposed that they had only to touch
and take-that wholesale theft was the easiest
road to glory, and Floyd's management of the
War Department immortal. Thus seventy armed
men stopped their way for months at Fort Sumter
and Fort Pickens, though threatened by rebel
army outnumbered its defenders from four to
twenty to one, and constantly threatened, has
never yet received hostile ball or shell. Gen.
Prentiss sits quietly at Cairo blockading two
great rivers whereby the rebels would otherwise
receive food for their furnishing troops, and cut
ting off all direct communication between the
Gulf traitors and their sorely pressed allies in
Missouri ; yet, though Pillow might at any time
advance from Memphis with double his force, he
threatens and stays away. 1t is so wherever the
traitors cannot lure some green Brigadier into a
trap, blaze away behind imprcgnabe intrench-
ments, or attack at an advantage OF three or
fonr to one.
is there, then, to be no fghtings
We say, none or equal terms, if the rebels can
avoid it. Having learned to their satisfaction
that the Free States are peopled by men who,
though they greatly prefer peace and are wholly
unused to war, will yet fight, and fight desper
ately, if driven to it, their present concern ia to
get out of the scrape as speedily and us easily
as possible. They will therefore avoid offensive
movements and keep their troops behind burnt
bridges so far as may be, watching for opportu-
mites to make dash at some unguarded point
or to swoop down on an exposed regiment in
overwhelming force, while their friends in the
loyal States negotiate them out of their dilemma.
Those friends are now darkly intriguing at Wash
ington, in this city, and elsewhere, with Demo-
cratic wire-workers and other conveniences, 10
have the Government forced to conclude the
war on terms which they can exult over as
virtual concession of their demands. To this
end, convention of Democratic Editors has
been called to meet this week in our city. To
this end Mr.. Crittenden is to lay before Congress-
80 soon as may be, his ultimatum, that we shall
surrender to Slavery all territory South of SO Q
30, under the penalty of having the sword of
now neutral Kentucky cast into the scale of dis
union. This project the Northern Democrats
are to be drilled into backing with the threat
that, should it not be accepted by the Govern
ment, no money or men shall thereafter be sup
piled by Democrats for the prosecution of the
war for the Union.
We have thus laid before our readers the plot
and the situation, as we are able to make out
their outlines by collating facts which reach us
from many independent sources. 1t rests with
the American people to say whether these mid
hight intrigues shall BE- successful. We only
ask them to bear in mind that one instance of
even partial success in neutralizing the verdict
of the ballot-box by an appeal to arms, opens
upon US in hideous prospect thousand years of
insecurity, anarchy and violence, and surrenders
our National destinies to those ''whose feet
make haste to shed b.oood"-[N. Y. Tribune