The star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1849-1866, 1864-01-13
BLooMsBURG.. COLUMBIA COUNTY, PA. 'wEDNEsD

of smaller affairs, whose title is legion, and
whose name can scarcely be remembered
save BY one with an encyclob@dian memory
Among them may be mentioned: Arkansas
Post, Prairie Grove, Jackson, Thomson's
} Hills, Port Hudson, Sabine Pass, Morris
Island, Millken's Bend, Little Rock, HeIe-
ma, Knoxville, and a thousand skirmishes
and contests that have oc cured between
Washington and Richmond.
OF all these battles, and lesser affairs tina
have occurred, we can regard but three az
decisive that at Champion Hills, before
Vicksburg Gettysburg and The last battle
OF Chattanooga. Even this scant number
may be reduced to ope-third, for the battle
of Gettysburg although grand in its proper
tions, was no decisive in scarcely any sense
of the word. Ii is of The same character as
Antie.am, and fought for precisely the same
purposes, viz to check the rebels in a
movement which had no particular stra-
tegic importance, and which amounted TO
supply foarging party on larger than
common scale. In neither case was the
enemy more than checked-in both cases
he drew off his army without demoraiza-
tion, and retired al his leisure, and in good
order, and unmolesied.
Chickamauga was greater contest thar
/ Chattanooga, but was not decisive /; it effsc
led no important results, and left the re-
speclive armies not materially different
| from what they were before the engage
ment.
! Champion Hills was decisive, for it deci-
! ded the fate of V;cksbnre, and gave is ma
| terial advantages in the cutting off of Texas
from The Confederacy. Chattanooga was
and has thrown tLe rebels back upon their
last line of defence. So far as the remain-
ing hundred battles and skirmishes are con
cerned seventy five of them need never
have been fought and in every one of such
cases, the blood shed, and the time and
/ material used, have been a useless and
wanton expenditure. IL is sad, bul never
| theless truthful reflection, that three
fourths of those gallant men who have
given up their lives have done so not
for their country, but through the crimi-
nal incompetency of official management
Notwithstanding that to day Virginia is one
vast graveyard, and that rivers OF blood have
deluged her soil, either the North nor the
South has gained since the war commenced
a single advantage of importance. Both
! armies, at The close of the campaign of
1863, stand very nearly where they did at
the beginning in 1861. A beautiful country
reduced 10 desol alton soil clogged with
graves, and full to repletion with blood !;
and thousands of bereaved and mourning
/ fresides in the North and South, are the
only results Obtained by these years of san
culinary any desperate conflict II he re-
sponsibilities tor all the useless waste OF
blood attached itself more TO one party than
TO the other, i, is TO the Federal authorities.
The rebels, in the main, have stood upon
the defensive when battles have been
fought, they have generally been projected
by US, and their failure is attributable to our
inefficiency. When We march upon Rich
mond, the rebels, as belligerents, have a
perfect right TO oppose our progress >. and
ones who are responsible for the failure and
/ the life wasted are those who directed the
operation.
The neurology of the mpaign is surpris-
ingly small in general officers, but volumi-
nous with relation 10 lesser officers and the
rank and file. All our great bsules have
been desperately contested, and bloody be-
yond comparison with those of other years
and other nations Probably not less than
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty
just ended, been slain outright, or died
from wounds or desease-a mos; fearful
aggregate of human life to be sacrificed in
one year, and is one whose proportions
will appal the slouiest heart. Probably,
there has never, in moderan times, been
war in which men were used up as rapidly
as in this. Bu little over two years have
elapsed since its beginning, and yet nearly
Twelve hundred thousand men have already
been sent into the field by the North OF
these there remain perhaps one>half, pos
sibly two-thirds alive-the remainder are on
the thousand battle-ieds whose width ex-
tends from The Atlantic to the Territories.
When to this monstrous number are added
those whom the South has lost, the aggre-
gate assumes dimensions 50 vast and repel-
ling that umanity shndders and-recoils in
the attempt TO comprehend it.
FEMALE SMUGGLERs.-The Evening Pos,
says: "The provost marshal OF Memphis,
Tennessee, some days since, had in cusio-
dy several ladies. soma of apparent re-
Snacfahititv sueoaotod IF hav;nr haan a.,