Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1861-11-02

oxE standing near great mountain is
prone to make false estimate of its pro-
portions, its breadth and height and mag
nitude; he must recede from it to get q
full view of it, to compare it with other
objects, TO let distance lift it into the
clouds and crown it with the sunlight and
the mist 1t is much the Same With events.
While we are confronting them, while the
din of the conflict reach es our ears. ard
the fash of artillery blinds the eye, while
they are in actual progress before US, the
average estimate belittles them 1t is
true, as Tacitus wrote. that everything
unfamiliar is.accounted wonderful, :and on
IL that whichis remote and strange gathers
about it the halo OF romance. No man is n
hero TO his valet; the prophet is not without
honor save in his own country.
So we glance over, in the daily newspa-
pers, without sensation and without admit
ration, the record of events before which
the most brilliant passages of romance
and of history pale and fade away. For
example, take that rash but glorious adj
venture 10 which Col. Baker lost his life.
The journals tell of it in matter of fact
way; the mass of the people discuss it,
pronounce it rash, lament the dead, but
give no utterance to admiration. Read
the story again. That force made gall
liant stand against superior numbers they
had crossed the Potomac without adequate
means of transportation they had the
river at their backs and the foe before
them if they had to tall back they SO far
triumphed that on the ensuing morning
they had the battle ground. The fight of
LeesDurg Heights has gone into history (;
it is the Inkerman to our Sebastopol. So
with the border war it Missouri. To some
coming novelist like Walter Scott, that
field will be prolific of border incidents
and character So will Western Virginia
and Kentucky.
The seige of Troy, and the island and
provincial heroes who sailed in well-built
ships to take part in it, have been the
center-piece of poetry and history Tor
generations. Compare the forces in and
about Troy, and the territory they repre-
scented, with the armies upon the Potomac.
Kingdoms compared with which our conn
ties are vast dominions, represented in
battles, to which our daily skirmishes are
prodIgies of warfare, are the classic ex-
amples which, in most minds, illustrate
and embody the stuff which makes his
tory. The sound of battle and its reality
are not confined with us to single seigc.
At Pensacola, on the guilt, and in North
west Missouri; at New Orleans, along the
Potomac, skirmishes that are battles are
occurring. In McClellan's command, hard
~ day now transpires in which there is
not an advance, and more or less of col
lision.
These events, which we observe so calm
ly, are to Fill broader chapters in the an.
mails Of the world than any that have gone
before. There is to be grand success,
or grand failure. The incidents of the
war; the deaths of true and noble men; tile
adventures which translate into fact the
dreams of romance; the separate scenes and
acts of the magnificent drama, are pro-
crossing before US. Because we are, even
II only like the chorus in the old tragedies,
In and Of the events, VIC do not accord to
them the proportions they realIy~possess.
We still search in the musty chronicles for
gallant deeds, and for real heroes, The
generations to come after US will 6nd in
the Lyons and the Bakers, In the recon-
noisancss and SkirmisheS now 90 familiar,
that for which We yet go back to earlier
OEsS.