The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1862-09-22
A change l,saeed.

a Change Indeed
The readers OF the Dispatch will tecolle,t
thea about FIVE months ago, whentb the little Ma
.rclecn had just begun To date his blus,esing
bulletins from the Peninsula. the wonderful
genius that site on the tripod of the New York
Herald predicted, with inimitable compla-
cency, that he would rival one Of the most IA
nous exploits of the great Napoleon, by max
ing Of Richmond a second Tim. aud eap'nf'ng'
or destroying all the forces assembled Ter i'e
defence Nothing he seemed to think. cotiid
be moro eaey or more certain of accomplish
unept The little Napoleon had but 10 march
uron Richmond. to Surround II with his 'n''n
rible levions, and Ia call nron IT'S defenders to
march our and lay down their AIMS at the feet
az the terrible Yankees. Then WAS 10 begin
the punishment OF the dsrus rebels who
had ventured to defy the power and spurn the
offers Of the ,nagnanimous Abraham Then
the hanging WAS 10 commence mot To be eM
erciscd indiscriminately upon all offenders, hut
with wise discrimination. Selections we've
to be made for the rope, with n view 10 cut off
the heads of the conspiracy ii being pre-
sumed that the members would remain quiet
when the head was gone, THEN the forfeiture
cf estates WAS 10 begin and the Yankees were
70 buy out the whole Southern States, ~ prop
erty forfeited for treason, Weventured at the
time to express doubt rs to the possibility Of
carrying out this humane programme. We
could see no resemblance between the move
ments OF the great and the little Napoleon, We
did not think. moreover. even though the
vanallcr Of the Napolecns We're imhied with
all the genius of the greater, his army WAS
quite equal to that which captured Tim. and
which Theirs tells us was the finest the I'm
peror ever commanded We could not be made
10 believe that S,ckles was as daring a leader
AS New. Mccall as thorough u soldier as Da-
voust, Reynolds as skillful ,actlcian as Sonlt,
Heintzelman as great strategist as Llnnes, |
or Cooke such "a bold dragoon" as Murat.-
AL these the great Napoleon had with HIM II
Clm, each OF them tool IN the hand OF the
master-workman, exactly adapted 10 execute
the especial piece of work 10 which he might
assign il. With less than all of them--not
withstanding the high qualities OF his almost
unrivaled army-we did not believe he could
have captured Tim. and as the little Napoleon
had them not. and as. moreover. Richmond
was harder to take than Tim, u lid not con |
csive that he would take Richmond. especially !
az We had no Mack here. !,
We think even the Herald prophet viii
hardly deny that we came nearer the mark |
than he did. So far from proving an Tin.
Richmond turned out to be much more like
Leipsic to the little Napoleon. So far from
cutting to pieces two-thirds of our army and |
shutting up and taking the remainder. he him.
self narrowly escaped being taken, with his
entire force. So far from defeating us in eight |
distinct engagements, as the French defeated I
the Austrians before they enclosed them iii
Clm, he himself was beaten in eight pitched !
battles before this city and SO far from ell
tering Richmond in triumph, az Napoleon
entered Tim. he fed to the protection OF
his gunboats, and sneaked away like thief
in the night after he had lost two thirds of bis
army. And now where is the little Napoleon
Has he struck any great blow to redeem the
Unreasonable disasters of his campaign before
Richmond! On the contrary, he has jus, sut-
fered q disaster greater than any of those he
suffered in that. Instead of taking our Whole
army, he has had 1000 of his best troops cap
tured by us. Instead of repeating the disaster
of Tim to us he has himself suffered disas-
ter almost as great that of Ulm, one hun
dred and fifty miles OFF. On one and the same
day he has had au army of 1900 men taken,
and has himself been beaten for the tenth
time, in Il pitched battle.
After all his falsihcations of its prophecies,
the Herald still clings TO the Little Napoleon
And it is right. He is beyond question the best
General the Yankees have, if there be any best
whore all are so incomparably bad. Perhaps
1t would be more proper to say he is the least
indifferent among them, He is certainly not
30 bad as the lying braggart and black guard |
Pope, or the almost equally mendacious Hal |
leck, or Buell., or Butler. The Yankees have
not only no General, but it seems to lie they
have no materials out of which General can
be made. A generation devoted to money
getting can hardly possess many of the heroic
virtues and among a people where the heroic
virtues do not exist, the material for forming
Generals cannot be found. The military acad-
envy at West Point has furnished the South
with number of Generals, worthy to rank
with those of any service i'll the world The
camp Of Gen. Lee, ut this moment. presents
IN array of names second to none which have
been known to the world, since the DAYS of
Napoleon and his Marshals We will not at
tempt to enumerate, for the number is SO great
that some of them would be sure to escape our
memory, and it would be inyidious not to
name all, for all-each i'll his separate sphere
deserve to be named. The same school, on
the other hand, has given to the Yankees
no name greater than that of Mcclellan, the
hero Of a dozen defeats, and only one victory