The daily Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1862-1863, 1863-07-28

of Bull Run. Idotic drivel about mask
ed batteries, and Black Horse Cavalry,
and terrific charges, and fields of men
mown as by reaper, filed all our col
umns for weeks; and at last, in the very
frenzy of our folly, we turned upon the
man who faithfully, and only too kindly,
described the panic and retreat, and
sought to transfer our disgrace to him
by giving him its name, and calling him
Bull Run Russell.
1t is period of our history we may
we'll blush to look back to; and yet the
retrospect is not discouraging.
HOW WE STOOD AFTER BULL RUN.
The war was just beginning. 1t was
our first conflict that approached the
dignity of battle AS our shattered
little army poured back, q terror-strlck-
en- rabble, the enemy advanced upon our
capital till his flag hoated over batteries
planted in fair view from the Presidents
windows From those batteries his lines
stretched northward along The Potomac;
all Virginia, save half Of the section west
of the Alleghenies, was in his hands;
in Kentucky he disputed possession with
us at Green River; at Columbus on the
Mississippi he blockaded the river and
menaced Cairo; in Missouri he threat
ened St LOUIS; south of this line the
whole country was in his unGisputed
possession; he held every port and we'll
nigh every fort on the coast, and along
the Lower Potomac he further disgraced
US before the world by blockading our
capital
We have sadly failed to come up to
the full measure Of our possibilities in
this war; but look at the result of the
two years fighting since Bull Run, and
say whether it affords evidence that we
can never conquer the South"
TERRITORIAL PROGRESS.
Two years ago the line ran through
North Virginia, Central Kentucky, and
Central Missouri To-day truns where2
Two-thirds of Virginia, the whole of
Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisi-
ana and Texas in our hands; the rebel
army of Tennessee driven from four
ffths of the State, and East Tennessee,
sorely prosecuted but faithful forever,
ready at last for deliverance; three
fourths of Mississippi ours, and our men
in possession Of its capital foot-holds
secured in South Carolina and Georgia,
and the chief city or the South Atlantic
coast, the nest of Treason and Rebellion,
admitting that its fall is now but ques-
tion Of weeks; Florida virtually ours;
the coast of North Carolina in our hands
and the whole State already debating an
early return to its allegiance, who shall
to-day trace the heeting bounaries of the
| naughty Confederacy the traitors estab-
| lished, save that one who can mark the
lines of its retreating armies2
OUR ARMIES AND THEIRS.
But we cannot crush the rebellion as
we crush its armies; not as we overrun
its territory. How stands the case here !?
We are just beginning our first con-
scription; the rebels have had none but
conscripts for eighteen months. Through
out the North every branch of labor is
progressing as usual; thus far we have
little but our redundance of laborers a:
the war. Through the South all labor is
abandoned, save the simple growing of
grain to support their armies; there are
even no laborers in many places to gath
er their sorely-needed harvests. The
rebel President has ordered a levy en-
mdSse that shall sweep, in one hugh net,
every man above eighteen not absolute
ly decrepid with age into the army AL
are to go; women and children are to
control the slaves and gather the crops.
We are hesitating as to whether we shall
need all of the small per centage it has
been determined to draft from the first
class liable to conscription.
Reinforced with three hundred thous-
and more, our armies, three-quarters of
a million strong, will sweep down in the
Fall upon the remaining strongholds
To oppose them there is not a single
quarter of million. In one word, their
fighting material is exhausted; we have
hardly drawn from ours deep enough to
make the drain inconveuiently felt with
in the range Of our industrial pursuits.
Henceforth their armies must decrease
they have no resources whence to sup
ply the constant waste; ours Lay be in
creased to any desired extent-we still
have a great reserve of millions yet un-
touched.
Two years ago we had twenty thou
sand regulars scattered to the four ends
of the continent, and seventy-five thou
sand volunteers, iissolving after the de-
feat like snow-drifts under June sun.
Against US stood defiant and victorious
armies. disciplined long enough to be
effective, and now held to service for a
shorter period than six months more.
To-day our army is equal in discipline,
and in numbers double two months
hence it will be treble theirs.
If armies, not territories, make the re,
bellion, have we not all the more ample
reason for satisfaction with the change
from two years ago to to-day.
But after ali, the sinews of war are
neither in broad lands nor great armies.
How do we stand the crucial test?
Two years ago, revere without money
and without credit We paid over seven
per cent for a loan, and were glad to get
it at that; while rebel sym pathizers
taunted us by saying that dozen or
two semi-secession bankers in New York
carried the Government in their breeches
pocket, and could make or break it, as il
pleased or displeased them. We had nc
revenue; imports were stopped; there
seemed to be no way to carry on the