The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1864-08-03
The Sit .a,iea.

The Sit ,a,ion.
Thus far, appearances are greatly in
our favour ia Georgia. General Hood
seems to have made himself very ac-
ceptable to all classes i'm the army not
withstanding the general attachment to
General Johnston and the general regret
Of his removal The country has, IN
deed. great reason to feel satisfied with
General Hood. He has shown himself
to be not only fighting man, but a man
who knows how to fight. His victory o.
the 22d was evidently sumner to Sher-
man: and the lies he wrote about it go
a long way to prove it. He states thai
he lost in that battle-killcd, wounded
and missing than eighteen hun
dred men; whereas, at the very time,
General Hood had more than two thou
sand Yankee prisoners in his possession.
Nor have the operations since that day
been less spirited or less successful. For
details of them, we refer the reader to
the tclcgraphic column. From oil we
have heard of General Hood, we should
Judge him to be the very man to infuse
spirit into an army. He is young to
hold so large command, but not too
young. He is eight years older than
Give was when he commenced his ca
reer in India seven years older than
Bonaparte was when he took command
of the Army of Italy; and Of the same
age with Wolfe when he fell on the
plains Of Abraham. II is not age, but
military experience, that is needful in
general. This possessed, the younger
the man is, the better. Nearly all the
greatest generals Of the world have been
young men when they made their first
campaigns. Alexander the Great was
twenty; Hannibal, twenty-seven the
Great Condo, twenty two; Charles XII,
eighteen, at the opening of their several
careers. There have been others, how
ever, equally distinguished, who COM
menced later. Julius Caesar was forty
two when he began to command in Gaul
Wellington was thirty-nine when he took
command in Spain; Washington was
forty-three when he took the American
army in hand Marlborough was fifty
three when he took command in Flan-
ders; and General Lee was somewhere
near the same age when he took the
command of the Army of Northern Vir-
ginia. There is no general rule; but
eerteris paribus-talent and experience
being equal, the younger the man the
better for the service.
What Grant will try next we cannot
conceive, though we have no doubt Cen
eral Lee understands perfectly well what
he intends. Thus far his failures have
been scandalous beyond belief But for
his navy he would be beaten out of his
entertainments and compelled to surren :
der in less than a week. And this it is
this navy of thcirs-that has borne hard
upon us throughout this war; Outnum-
bering us, as they do, five to one, we
should have beaten them out of tho
country long ago had we only had ma
Wy equal to theirs. To the everlasting
disgrace Of the Yankee nation, they have
not been able to subdue US, with the as
sistance of our own negroes and half of
Europe, backed by feet of 600 vessels
OF war. Ought not that nation to hang
its head in shame, Gould we but get
rid Of their navy, we should make such
short work Of them as would astonish all
the world. Grants army would never
have gotten back to Washington from
Gold Harbor had it not been for his
feet. McClellan's whole force would
have been captured but for the same ad-
vantage.