The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1864-12-07

ciare--what, indeed, it was hardly neces.
sary to dcclare--that we make no preten.
sions whatever TO any knowledge of the
art military. Some common sense, how
ever, we do lay claim to; and under the
influence Of that useful, anf by no means
common gift, we do not hesitate to say
that the expedition Of Sherman hto
Georgia is one OF the most ridiculous
conceptions that ever entered into the
mind Of man. There Was no object that
he could possibly gain at all common
surate with the advantages he was Ger
tain to lose If Hood had cut off his
supplies sni iaterrupte his communica-
tionS, he should have followed the Napo-
leonic in motion First, settle every
thing, if possible. in front, and then clear
your communications. He should have
turned back upon Hood, defeated aud
paralyzed his army, and then returned
u Atlanta. But his egregious vanity
had already committed so far that he
knew not how to go back. Elated by
the retreat of Johnston-which was I'M
doubtedly the result of profound calcu.
-laton on the part of that great officer
and mistaEing entirely the object of that
retreat, he imagined that it was compul.
sorry and had been produced by his own
skllful combinations. When he lad
succeeded in defeating Hood at Zones
borough defeat productive, absolutely,
of not one single advantage to the Yam
kee cause-he grew mad with self-es.
TEEN. He not only published them
extravagant and exaggerated accounts Of
what he had done, but actually pro-
claimed TO the world that his campaign
was model for all military men to study
infuture-apiece of arrogance that Guild
have been disgusting even in Caesar
or Napoleon, and which neither Of these
mighty generals thought of indulging in
Alter having gone so far-when Hood
fell upon his rear and cut off his commu-
nications-shame forbade him to take the
retrograde and to confess that his boosted
conquests were no conquests at all The
Yankee mob would have torn down his
statue from the pedestal and degraded |
him from the lofty elevation which his |
own talsehOods and their boundless ere.
duiity had assigned to him and that
was, to mind SO full of vanity and
ostentatlon, worse than death. He
seems, therefore, to have resolved upon
the expedition to Georgia as last des-
perate expedient to prove the Just ground
OF all his previous yaporings. He had
said that the whole country he had
passed over was completely subdued,
and that there was no longer any danger
IN II. lie had spoken contemptuously of
Hood and his operations, and he now
determined TO show that he felt az he i
spoke. Wounded vanity seems to have
been at the bottom of all his proceed
ings.
What he expected to gain in Georgia )
we do not know. We think it pretty i
certain, however, that he did not expect Il
much opposition, and that he did expect
to meet with much encouragement aud d
assistance from the population, We I
should infer thus much from his general
order prescribing the rules TO be observed !
IN marching, and from his having de-
fermined to discard supply trains and
trust to feeding on the country. In both
these calculations he has been signally
deceived, if all the accounts be true.
From the Inhabitants, he has met with no Al
or cooperation whatever. In u
every case in which it was possible, they :
nave either fled at his approach or taken
lp arms against hin. The Yankee news r
papers heralded his advance by pompous al
of the mighty captures he su
vas to make and the mighty effect his
INVASION was to produce. 1t was to cut n
II the portions of Georgia whence, ac- /
ordlng TO their accounts, General Lee Fr
ecelves his supplies. 1t was to flank
Zee out oil his position and deliver Rich {
lond over to Grant. 1t was to recap I
lre the 10000 or $4,000 Yankee priso L
ers that they said were in Georgia. 1t
-as TO take Augusta and Macon, {
here, they said, were the main rebel 4
owder mills and magazines of every y
md. 1t was to take Charleston and
avannah, and crush the rebellion by the q
lpture of these rebellious strongholds. L
he designed any of these things, and i
lie Yankee journals gave him credit for xSO1
signing them all, yet was disappoint- d
ent more complete; and If he fanoied, l.
the same papers seem to have done, a,
at the population would receive him with
= and the Legislature rapturously hail sho
5 advent SIS the signal for restoring the A
Mon, never was self-deception more de- NJ
)rable. We know not where he is mer
S very friends have been firing guns d,
day, and sending up rockets by night, n
along the coast for the last week -, ~
tn the hope of discovering his where >,
outs, in vain, while two exploring ex- -
ditions, sent forward for the same II
rpose, have been signally defeated - Ta4
thrust back to their boats. But
know, at least, that the i'm ID
rtant places the Yankees speak -
confidently of his taking are and
beyond his reach, and that he has -
netting to think of very differ X
from capturing great cities or impor on G