The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1862-09-13
FROM EUROPE.

From the London Morning Herald.
The spectacle of the decline and fall OF
the American Republic is not edifying to
behold. There is no dignity to be OBJ
served in its manner of dying. internal
dissension is the result of ill-success, not
to say disgrace abroad The remnants of
the Federal Union, unable to reduce the
South to its old allegiance, yet refuses to
give up the stuggle until utter exhaus-
ton shall force it to relax the hold which
every day is becoming feebler. While
the North is manifestly far weaker than
it was a year ago, the South appears to
be fresher and more vigorous than ever
1t seems able, in some incomprehensible
way, to oppose to every Northern army a
force superior in numbers, strength and
discipline. While the North has not yet
produced a general worthy of the name,
the leaders of the South, many of them
untried men, have displayed degree of
ability not unworthy of veteran soldiers.
Twice has General jackson surprised and
scattered an army by the wonderful ccler-
ity of his movements. Twice, at least,
has Lee been victorious in pitched battles,
conducted on strategic principles. Beau.
regard, who from his success at Bull Run,
was long the bugbear of the North, has
outdone himself in the mastery move
ment which, after enticing on an enormous
army of the enemy into the very heart of
the South, ended in his disappearance in
the very face of its unskilful General
without the loss Of man or a gun. The
North has been alternately outmaneuvred
and defeated in battle. Never fighting,
except where there was fair prospect of
success, the Southerners have resigned
their foe to the tender mercies of the
Southern swamps, when they did not find
it expedient to attempt the coup de grace
by bullet and bayonet Those who have
escaped from the Confederates the fever
has slain, and those who have recovered
from the fever have met bloodier death.
What need for the hand of man to give
any impetus to the destruction of. Hal
leck's army,which dying by hundreds day
for months together, made rank the grass
crops which spring from the broad green
fields along the great Mississippi? What
need to disturb Burnside in his occupancy
Of that deadly country by the Dismal
swamp? The emaciated skeletons who
form the remnant of his host have been
brought back to Fortress Monroe but
they cannot reinforce the army at Harri.
sons Landing, for of what use to McClel-
Ian is this handful Of dying men? What
his losses in the field and in the camp,
with thousands taken prisoners, and deser-
tiers SO numerous that their number is
limited at in shame, the great army of the
North has seemed to melt away like snow
in spring. Where are the 10000 men
who have been raised and drilled for the
war? Mcclellan may have still 100 900,
and Pope $4,000; of the rest, some are
scattered in garrisons which occupy, at
some peril to themselves, those isolated
I points of the seaboard and rivers in which
the North in its grievous folly has thought
it right to occupy; but many, very many,
are gone and lost for ever to the great ar
my of which such wonders were predicted.
Should Mcclellan and all his army fall
bodily in the hands of the South, or be
driven back upon Washington, this cam
paign will be worthy to be compared with
the most disastrous ia history, even with
4 the terrible expedition of Napoleon to
Russia. Of the 100000 additional re-
cruits called for in the Presidents procla-
nation scarce 10000 have been attracted
by the enormous bounty offered. 1t is
now proclaimed that the number is to be
completed BY drafting; and yet another
100000 is to be obtained from the state
militia for nine months service only.
From the reluctance now shown by the
populace to take part in the war, it is mani.
fest that its martial enthusiasm is cooling
down, if not already extinct. IL is the
merchants who are calling for recruits,
not the lower orders, who are sick of the
whole business, The men, who are the
most warlike are not the meniwho have 10