Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-06-12

Several thousand soldiers, whose terms of
enlistment have expired, have already re-
turned During the summer months every
state will welcome portion of its rep
resentatives home from the field. Coming,
many of them, from scenes of bitter trial, or
of honorable triumph, with the evidence of
their fiery baptism upon them, their views of
the war, and of the instrumentalities by which
it should be carried on, will be regarded with
unqualified respect, and have no slight weight
in the aggregate of public opinion.
The partizans of disgraced officers appre
ciate the value of their opinions by the
estimate they place on the random
cheers given by some New York regi-
ments as they passed General McClellan's
headquarters in that city. Elated by the fact
that some soldiers who served with that Off
Ger charitably forgot the wild race they ran
under him, and only remembered, in the JOY
of their release from service, that he was for
time their commanding officer, his restless
and seditious partisans have already begun
the agitation of mass meeting of veterans,
with the view of a more formal ovation to
him, and more direct rebuke to the admin
istratOn that displaced him.
This is the last gasp of an expiring repu-
tation. That some kindly feeling should re-
main in the breasts OF those who have suffer-
ed, for every one who has suffered with them
is natural enough. But the attempt of de-
signing men to magnify it into a fixed purpose
. ~. g Il.
ity into which it is falling will fail none the
less. The sentiment of an army, returning
from the sad realities of various and uncer-
tain conflict, inspired still with burning de-
sire for victory which no succession of defeats
will ever stiie or quench, can be trusted for
nobier and Drawer work than that. Consult
them wherever you see two of them together,
ask them as you meet them on all routes of
travellers, or at places of general resort, and if
one in a thousand hesitates in his choice be-
tween officers who have fought the rebellion
with purpose to put it down, and those who
from the first to the last hour of their service
had their right arms bound behind them, you
will find that that one had no motive for en-
listing at ALL or that he dsbelieves in the whole
war.
Bnt every thoughtful and earnest soldier,
who aspires, however humbly, to be Nestor
of our ditficulties,-to clear away the doubt
and misgiving which, especially in the de-
partment of Virginia, has clouded our arms
to point out the way by which defeats have
been sustained or successes have been won,-
to justify the firm purposes and resolute
measures without which there has yet been
no good fortune to the national cause, out of
which all good fortune must come hereafter,
if it comes at all-will most devoutly pray
again rest in the hands of any but patriots of
approved loyalty, who are at the same time
soldiers of approved genius. If the aggre-
gate opinion of those tried and gallant veter-
ants could find one voice, and that voice
could be heard in the high councils of the gov
eminent, it would appeal for no backward
steps, no reluctant aggression, but now and
ever for the bravest and best leaders, for the
most pronounced and courageous opponents
OF the cause which it is the duty as well as
good fortune of the government to serve.