The Smoky Hill and Republican union. [volume] (Junction City, Kan.) 1861-1864, 1864-11-19

Sherman Advancing On Charleston and sav.nnan'
More than week ago We were aPPrised
by private dispatches from Atlanta OF the
coming denouemens Of the mystery which
has lately rested over the counter movements
of Hood and Sherman. There can no
longer be any military reasons for with
holding from the public what the rebels
have by this time necessarily learned, tho
too late to avert their catastrophe. 1t Is
already we'll known that Beauregard and
Hood, striking westward from the line Of
the railroad connecting Atlanta with Chat
tauooga, have crossed the Tennessee river
at Florence, point in Alabama two hun
dred miles west of Atlanta, and about one
hundred miles equidistant from Nashville
and Memphis. leaning towards the latter.
The design Of this movement as boastfully
announced or .uminously binted at BY JEFF.
Davis in his recent speeches, and BY the
desperately sanguine rebel papers, was to
make such demonstration far in Sherman's
rear as would oblige the latter to abandon
Georgia from Chattanooga to Atlanta, in
order to prevent Beauregard from capturing
Nashville and Memphis. Events will prove
whether Beauregard and Hood. in adopting
this strategy, are geniuses or fools. Ger
tainly it is far above or much below the
standard of prudence anu common sense.
Beauregard's entire force is not estimated
to be over forty or forty five thousand, and
to attend to this the force under General
Thomas will be found fully adequate. To-
deed, already it is iutimated that the rebels
have halted in their advance, or are retiring
Meantime, General Sherman, with two
hundred miles the start Of Beauregard,
with no enemy in frnot, and With, IS ho
expresses it, I" the sehole Southern States
open to him, left Atlanta several days ago
with an army Of seveDty-6ve thousand men,
and will sweep with the irresistible power
of tornado down into the heart of Georgia
and South Carolina to Charleston and Mo-
bile. He will march in three grand COL
ums or corps d'arme, each we'll provided
with artillery and cavalry, wholly abandon
ing and probably destroying Atlanta-de-
stroying the roads and bridges in his rear
gathering supplies from the country, and
receiving the fugitives who will flock to his
standard probably by thousands. In short,
for the first time during tho war our armies
will have passed through the she'll of the
rebellion and will move uocpposed through
the euemy's country. An opportunity will
be given to the Union men, black and
white, on his route to Aock to the standard
of the Union. It is believed that Sherman
will arrive at his objective point with re-
enforcement of not less than City thousand
able bodied men, plucked from the heart Of
the enemy's country. The occupation Of
the navigable line of the Savannah river
and the fall of Charleston and Savannah
before rear attack, would constitute Gar
more disastrous blow to the rebellion than
the fall Of Richmond. JEFF. Davis wouli
in fact be called upon to abandon South
Carolina and Georgia to their fate, or to
attempt to rescue them by the abandonment q
Of Richmond in the face Of Grants largely
superior army. dangerous and probably
undertaking Indeed, it is
evident that JEFF. Davis will have enough to
10 to save the Richmond army from ami
hilation If be ventures to leave his strong
at Richmond aad Petersburg.
On the other hand, Beauregard is already
wo hundred miles in the rear Of Sherman,
md has neither facilities to overtake him,
,or strength to fight him when overtaken.
If Sherman won Atlanta By the blunder-
ng of Hood in merely sending his cavalry
o Sherman's rear, it is difficult to see why
,e should not win Charleston and Savan-
lab, now that Beauregard and Hood. in
epetition of the same blunder on q more
tupeDdous scale, have sent their whole
rmy some two hundred miles to Sherman's
ear, thus uDcovering to bis victorious le-
ions the whole prize which the former
eeks to defend and the latter to possess