Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-06-25
Tee Loudou Times on GRANTS FigbtIue.

The London Times is constrained to admit
that the Army of the Potomac, under Gen.
GRANTS leadership, has manifested unsur-
passed fighting qualities. In an article on
the series of battles in the Wilderness, it
says w
Perhaps the Americans may be proud of
the pre-eTninence, but they have certainly
fought more desperately, for a longer time,
and with more dreadful slaughter, than any
nation 5efvTss ::ssss-, It would not be impos-
sible to match the results of any one days
battle with stories from the wars of the Old
World but never, we should think, in the
history of man, were five such battles as
these compressed into six successive days.
1t is hard to conceive how nature could have
supported the exhaustion and strain. We
have been told that after single days hard
fighting, the lassitude and reaction are such
even in victorious and exultant army
that any fresh force might snatch its laurels
from it whereas, here are two armies holly
engaged in the work of slaughter from the
morning of Thursday till the night of Tues
day, with scarcely the intermission of an
hour. On every day, except Saturday. there
was pitched battle, contested with the ut
most fury; and even Saturday was devoted
TO marching and fighting on the march. Nor
were these prodigious operations divided
among immense numbers brought into action
by relays. Neither army numbered appa-
rently over one hundred thousand men, and
of these every man seemed to have been en-
gagged in every battle. Indeed, we are ex-
pressly told that the Federal reserves were
brought up the very first day.
The desperate ferOcity of the fighting may
be inferred from the fact now reported that
the slaughter was produced without the aid
of artillery. No rihed guns or murderous
shells did execution among crowded masses.
The great battle of Friday, which is said to
have cost the Federals alone upwards of TO-,
600 men, was hand-to-hand fight. The
Confederates were posted in the well-known
woods in the vicinity of Charlottesville,
where Hooker once received so bloody a re-
pulse, and so dense was the thicket that can
non could not come into play Regiment
against regiment. man against man, the COM
batants fired and hacked each other in this
tangled wilderness until night closed in; and
an intercepted report from Gen. Lee tells US
that, on his side, the heaviest loss was in men
killed outright, and that he had comparative
ly few wounded. 1t is clear, indeed, that
whatever may be said of the composition of
the Northern armies, and of their inferiority
in this respect to the patriot legions of the
South, they have fought in this campaign with
a valor as obstinate as that of their enemies.
No mere Indifferent or disaifected mercena-
ries could have been led from a battle like
that at Wilderness to three more such battles
at Spottsylvania. Be the impulse what it
may, the Federals are fighting in stern reali-
ty, and with spirit as resolute as that of
their adversaries.
He Grant has stamped
new character on the tactics of the FEEDER
ais. No other General would either have
advanced upon WILDERNESS IS after the severe
battle of the 9Th, or followed up an almost
victorious though retiring enemy after the
still harder fighting on the 9th. None but
he, again, would have attacked his adversary
so resolutely on the Sth and on the 9th, or
held his ground so tenaciously in spite of
failure. Under his command the Army of
the Potomac has achieved in invading Vir-
ginia an amount of success never achieved
before, except in repelling invasion.