Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1864-07-29
An Interesting Rebel Article.
From the Georgia Constitutionalist, June 20.
THE SITUATION-HOW DO WE LOOK

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THE sITUATION-HOW DO WE LOOK ?
Scotland had no poet SO sweet in song
and yet so terrible in satire, as ROber
Burns. One little verse of his we wisl
to adopt for a text, and it is so wei
known, that, as we quote it, there is n,
need for us to shock the moderate pro
prieties by giving the name of the poem
in which it occurs:
30, wad some power the giftie gle us,
To see ourselves as ithers see us!
1t wad frae many a blunder free us,
l. And foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'e us,
And cen devotion"
We secesh are habitally amused at tn,
shifts and lodges to which our enemy
cover disaster or disappointment. Bu
do we never initiate the schoolboy who
whistles to keep his courage up,n al
he passes through the graveyard? Dc
we never illustrate the wisdom Of thai
desert bird, which hides it's head in the
sand and imagines itself hid?
The On to Richmond " of the enc
my has become a by-word for children
and we long ago learned to laugh at the
thirty, sixty and ninety days in which
the rebellion was to be crushed out"
We have felt pity for the people who
could feel glad at an advance on Rich.
mOnd, which appears to have cost some
two thousand men for every mile they
gained; and contempt for the. govern.
ment which would forge our State pa.
pers in clumsy way, for the purpose OF
making themselves temporarily success
full, and finally infamous, before the
ewes of foreign mowers
Seeing these things let us avoid them,
ever with the question before us-How
do we look before the world? Not for
getting another equally important ques-
ton, one which is vital to our success,
as it involves our self-cOntidence-H0w
do we look to ourselves?
What we wish to urge is simply the
moral of the old proverb, Let not him
that putteth on his armor boast himself
as him that putteth it Off"
Often have our people been deceived
by false and delusive hopes, gotten up
with the best intention in the world, by
those who think they help our cause by
proclaiming victory amid the thickest
of peril. Or when we are really and Sc
riously injured, they by brave words at
tempt to heal slightly "the hurt Of the
daughter of Zion"
God help them to have more judg.
ment, for they surely do not realize the
sickening sense of utter despair, the ut
ter crushing of bright dream flowers
which is the inevitable result of those
believed in the prophecies of sure sue
cess, when followed by inevitable dis
aster.
The magnificent army of Sherman
has, without loss and without battle,
forced back one of our best armies under
a favorite General and if he only had
intended a raid, the destruction of the
vast agricultural interest of the granary
of our State, is a loss which we are ill
prepared to endure, and totally unpre-
pared to retrieve. The evil is, first, the
withdrawal from market of the essen
tial food; second, the increase of popu-
lation caused by refugees, which makes
an increased demand OH the producing
capacity of the State; third, the increas-
ed prices, which tend to depreciate our
currency, which cannot bear another
one-third reputation. Then, if it be
more than a raid, and Sherman holds
his front by Notifications, and his rear
by guards, it is an actual loss of en-
pire.
Therefore, with harm actually done,
uHu W ltu AUlttuUtl iIltl Vic = lcdL idillOSlu
interests involved in the fate OF battle
that Sherman may or may not risk; is
it wise to tell our people that the inva-
sion of our State is but a stupid blum
der' of the enemy?
Just eight hours before the battle OF
Bakers Creek, General, high in COM
mand, told a lady in our hearing that
the crossing of the Mississippi by Gen.
Grant, placed him entirely at our mercy,
and that the only thing to fear was, that
he would take the alarm and escape to
the gunboats before we could make the
attack. Twenty-four hours later, our
broken columns were hurrying along
the same road in retreat, and the lady
who had believed the General, could not
save even her wearing apparel. That
General was not named PembertOn.
Instance after instance of this kind
have we had during the war, and yet
grave papers, with able editors, talk OF
the certainty that Sherman can never
take his army back to Chattanooga, and
congratulate the country that he has
marched into trap. WeOnce had some
experience with an old rat that alwaye
sprung the steel-trap from the under
side, and always took off the bait and
never got caught. The Yankees have a
peculiar faculty of marching into traps
and st0ying there. Our only commentary
upon such writing, is, that such traps as
half a State, and the best half at that
are so expensive as to perhaps awaken
smiles in the North and in Europe,
when we boast of them.
In like manner do we talk about Grant
and amuse ourselves over a set of facts
which are far from amusing.
We are perfectly satisfied that the
commander of the armies of the United
States might have reached the result he
now aims for, with but a small portion
of the loss he has now sustained; and
that, too, with all allowance for the pc
culiar Confederate arithmetic which
kills Yankees SO rapidly-on paper!
Lieut.. Gen. Grant was greatly mista.
ken in the idea, that having turned the
flank of Gen. Lee in crossing the Rapi.
dan there would simply be foot-race
for Richmond. But two things have
since been demonstrated, and both are
serious. First, that the army of the
Union is so large and powerful that the
usual military axiom, " Thanking is
more dangerous to the Tanker than the
fianked," does not apply. The strategy
of Grant, which consists in simply with.
impregnable masses of the center and
other wing, would be fraught with peril
were that centre and remaining wing
contracted enough to be enveloped, OF
weak enough to be broken, but is pre-.
cisely safe as it is. Therefore he is at
liberty to play tricks in plain sight and
without peril, simply because he is toe
big to catch! Consequently, in asucccs-
sion of tricks, even by one of the only
moderate ability of Grant, there is dan
ger that the one not seen or foiled at ex-
.actly the right time may catch us. Such
result would not be destructive to ouI
army, for Lee also is too big to hold, but
ii might do us harm.
The seconddangeris the seige of Rich
mond. Some of our contemporaries,
and the most of correspondents, laugh
at this; and yet Grant has it in his pow
er to beseige the capital, or force an at
tack on himself, or force an evacuation
of d io1 r,On1