Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-01-26

From the Richmond Examiner, Jan. 20.
''The Yankees Hold all they Have Ever
HeId"-AnOther Years Progress to
Make them Masters of the Southern
Confederacy."
1t is not altogether an empty boast on the
part of the Yankees that they hold all they
have ever held, and that another year or two
of such progress as they have already made
will find them masters of the southern con-
federacy. They who think independence is
to be achieved by brilliant but inconsequential
victories, would do well to look with the nat
ural eye at the magnitude of Yankee possess
sions in our country. Maryland, Kentucky
and Missouri are claimed as constituent parts
of the confederation; they are as much in the
power of Lincoln as Maine and Minnesota.
The pledge, once deemed foolish by the south,
that he would ''hold, occupy and possess" all
the forts belonging to the United States gov"
eminent, has been redeemed almost to the
letter by Lincoln. Forts Sumter and Nor
gan we still retain, but, with these exceptions,
all the strongholds on the seaboard, from
fortress Monroe to the Rio Grande, are in the
hands of the enemy.
Very consoling and very easy to say that it
was impossible to prevent all this, and that the
occupation of the outer edge of the republic
amounts to nothing. Drewry's Bluff and
Vicksburg give the lie to the first assertion,
and the onward movement of Rosecrans to-
ward Alabama, the presence of Grant in
North Mississippi, and of Curtis in Middle
Arkansas, to say nothing of Banks in New
Orleans and Baton Rouge, set at rest the silly
dream that thin strip of sea-coast only is in
the possession Of our foes. The truth is, the
Yankees are in great force in the very heart
Of the contederacy; they swarm on all our
borders, they threaten every important city
yet belonging to us, and nearly two hundred
thousand of them are within two days march
of the confederate capital This is no fiction.
1t is fact so positive that none can deny it.
Nor is this all. Our president tells us, in
his message, that the troubles with the Indian
tribes have been removed, and that no furth-
er difficulty is anticipated. The intelligence
we obtain from private and trustworthy
sources does not confirm the presidents san
guine assertions. The trouble with the Cher
okees was, in great part, due to the fact that
some seven or eight Thousand of them, now in
arms, had not received cent of pay for four
teen months. 1t is true that paper money has
been sent them, and ere now, it is to be hoped,
has reached its destination. But Indians do
not like paper money. Still it would answer
the purpose if Gen. Albert Pike remained to
disburse it, and to allay their prejudices,
which he, of all men in the confederacy, is
best able to do. Pike, however, has resign
ed for good reasons, doubtless, and person
said to be not the most competent is left in
his stead. Under these circumstances we
shall be fortunate indeed if we escape further
trouble with the Indians. Moreover we get
from Missouri members and others distress
ing accounts of the condition of affairs in Ar
kansas.
Gen. Hindman is far from being a favorite,
even among his own people, and so destitute
are some Of the new levies who have volun-
teered to come out of Missouri to join our ar
mics, that whole battaoAs OF them have been
seen marching barefoot through snow three
inches deep. Add to this the fact that, SO far
as the public is permitted to know, New Mex
leo and Arizona are for the time being lost to
us, and that the state of dissatisfaction in
Tennessee and Mississippi Growing out of
the appointment of incompetent officers and
the fancied neglect of that country by the
confederate government-not from any lack
Of fervor in the cause), which president Davis
visit was intended to heal, is likely to revive
under the depressing influence of Bragg's re-
treat and his continuance in communicate
all this to the foregoing, and it will be seen
that the Yankees have much to encourage
them in the prosecution of the war, and we
not little to excite serious apprehensions as
to the future.
The remedy for this state of things is obv-
Gus. 1t lies in the extension and rigid en-
torcement of that law to which we owe our
salvation. We must bring out the conscnpts
and diminish exemptions. If this is done, the
chapter of failures in the southwest will come
to an end. The history of the battles in that
region has been sufficiently uniform to justify
a conclusion which shall not be chargeable
with the vices of hasty generalization. 1t has
not been so much for want of brains as for
the want of men, that we have been compelled
to lose the fruits of some of the best fighting
that has been done in this war. At Doneson,
at Shiloh, at Perryville, and at Murfreesboro,
the story has been always the same-victo-
ries, achieved against great odds, snatched
away by overwhelming reinforcements to the
enemy.
As the past has been so will the future be,
unless something is done, and that speedily,
to fill up the shattered ranks of our armies in
the west. Exemptions must be diminished.
The system of details must be adopted. Young
men must not be permitted to evade their
duty by slipping into safe places. Complais-
ant friends must turn deaf ear to their en-
treaties. Able-bodied men must not be allow
ed to stay at home on the pretext of attending
to twenty negroes. Here in Virginia there
dIG III many places COHtSuOuS piiHldilOIS,
numbering in the aggregate hundreds of
slaves, without solitary white man left to
guard them. The gentle authority of ladies
has been found amply sufficient to control the
obedient African population.
With the first opening of spring comes the
last tremendous shock of the war. Many of
the Yankee troops are nine months men.
More are enlisted for two years, their time
expiring in May next. Up to that time they
~will be available, and we may be very sure
that all the fighting that can possibly be got
ten out of them will be had before they are
allowed to go home. They outnumber us
two to one. There is limit to the endurance
of the brave men at Tullahoma, Grenada and
Vicksburg They must be sustained, strength
ened, reinforced. If within the next two
months we do not add scventy-fve or hun
dred thousand men to our forces in the south
west we shall come to grief. If we do add
them, we are safe beyond peradventure, and
next summer Will witness the final triumph of
our arms.
William Dunlevy, a law student at Norwich,