The Abingdon Virginian. [volume] (Abingdon [Va.]) 1849-1883, 1863-09-11

/! to all practical commerce, The inhabitant
! of the country are more reused than ever b!
the outrages Of the enemy; and redoubled ei
forts will be made to render his local success
SEES bootless to him. We have two powerful
4 and noble armies under Johnston and Brag
on the eastern side Of the river, which al
strengthened daily by the Confederate con
! scription and the Jealous cooperation OF tn
adjacent State Governments; while, on tn
western side, are the enterprising and indom;
table commands of Price, Of Kirby Smith, Q
Taylor, and of Magruder to strike, whereve
the enemy may present himself.
1 When this situation is compared with tn
many unavoidable reysrses and endless diff
culties which our brave ancestors had to en-
counter, and SO gloriously surinounted, il
their struggle for independence, who does no
feel his spirit rebuked at the slightest though
of discouragement under our present circnna
stances? Recollect the condition Of Wash
ington il the second year Of the war of thu
Revolution, when, after successive and severe
disasters on Long Island, at New York, Al
White Plains, and the Notifying loss Of For
Washington ON the Hudson with its garrison
he was compelled TO retreat through the Jer
seys, pushed" to use his own expressive
language, s.from place to place, till We were
Obliged to cross the Delaware with less than
three thousand men fit for duty" and the re-
luctant confession was extorted from his firm
and manly breast that unless new army
can be speedily recruited, the game is pretty
nearly np,D even in this extremity, there vas
no discouragement. no dependency. The
presence and magnitude of the danger only
supplied new energies of action and stimulat-
ed to redoubled exertion; and in few days,
the brilliant achievements of Trenton and
Princeton addressed the balance Of victory.
In every period Of the revolutionary con-
test, a large portion of our territory was over
run and occupied by the enemy. In the
South, Greene was compelled to retire before
CORVALLIS, as Washington had done before
the Howes in the Nurth. Georgia. South
Carolina. Virginia, each and all Of theta east
of the Blue Mountains, were overrnn, for q
time, by the armies Of the enemy, while the
chief cities in the North and the South, Bos-
ton, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Rich
mond, Norfolk, Wilmington, Charleston. and
Savannah were all, for longer or shorter pc
riod, IN his possession. But if the country
was overrun. the hearts of the people were
not overawed. With them, and their trusted
servants, whether in the councillor the field,
there was no despair Of the Republic. They
felt, az Washington, when most oppressed BY
the complicated difficulties Of his situation,
expressed himself in the sincerity Of his
heart, in writing to his brother-"U Under a
full persuasion of the justice Of our cause,
cannot er terrain an idea that it will finally
sink, though it may remain, for time, un-
der CLIQUE"
All history proves that brave and uncor-
rnpted people, determined to be free, never
can be subdued by the iasolent superiority of
force and Numbers, however disproportioned.
What availed the countless Persian hordes of
Darius and Xerxes, when confronted. in ma
ny field made classic and holy ground by
their discontinue, with the proud spirit of
freedom and the noble selfdevotion eff the
small but undannted commonwealth of Greece?
If ever people had apparent cause for de-
spondency, it was the people of Rome when
Hannibal with his Carthaginian hosts, after
three successive victories on the Titho, the
Brsscia, and Thrasymene in his triumphal
march towards the capital, almost annihilat
ed, the Roman army in fourth at Cannae,
leaving more thas forty thousand Romancisi-
zens dead upon the field, including one Of the
Censuls in command, many Senators, Exon
suls, Pretors, Oediles, and others of the high
est rank and consideration. But. amid the
constern alton of so terrible a calamity, the
spirit Of the Republic never blanched. When
he surviving Consul, whose rashness even
aad been the cause ( f the disaster, approach
I'd the city with the wreck of his army, the
Senate and all ranks of the people, we are
old BY one of their historians, went out to /
meet him and thanked him for. not having
lespaired Of the Commonwealth. And in the
md it was not Rome, but Carthage, that per-
shed in the conflict.
So, too, when we come down to the period
if modern history. l. it possible to conceive.
!, struggle mere unequal in numbers, in an.
and every material resource than
hat, in the sixteenth century, between the
seven insurgent provinces Of the Netherlands,
beginning with two only, and the whole
weight and power of the Spanish monarchy
n its meridian splendour. when, in addition
o the resources Of its large dominions in
italy, the Netherlands and the Peninsula, in
;lnding Portugal, it welded the wealth Of
America and the Indies united? And vet bv |
he indowitable courage and perseverance of
he inhabitants, animated with the spirit of
iyil and religions liberty, and in spite Of
alamities and disasters. that tried to the ut
ermost the heroic stuff of which they were
made, leaving them often no other resource
han, by cutting their dy kes, to cali in the aid
that destructive element it had cost them
ges Of toll and labor to shut out, they re-
eemed their native land from the remorse |
ess surges Of q dsspotism more ferocious than
he see, triumphantly established their indie, !
endence, and constituted renowned COM
,onwealth, which, for two hundred years,
roudly held its place in the first rank Of the
overs Of Europe.