The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1865-03-05

troops The turning Of BraachVille
was the signal for the evacuation d
Charleston, and its capture was 4 {
capture of Charleston It was as il
Shermxn, sixty-two miles distant from
Hardee, had sent him q telegraphiG
message 70 vacate the premises and
the notice was obey5d without question.
Ordinarily, one would have supposed
that the streams which crossed SheT-
mans path at every. step would have
been successfully contested. But he
appears TO have passed them without a
dsy's delay at any one OF such vital
Importance was time to both parties
to the one, that he might make his
combinations and concentrations; to
the other, that he might break them
that no other sacrifice would have
seemed too great on the enemy'z part
to ensure delay. But, a. the very first
show of resistance at q river crossing,
our advance, not waiting for support
would dash into it, waist-deep, with
loud eheeEs. white the rest of ths col
umn hurried 10 flank the position
above aud below, and inTariably in q
lew hours, the enemy ives IN hot re-
treat @ ~ @.
Indeed, the enthusiasm Of our troOps,
with Sherman as leader, mas knOwn
no bounds They have felt themselves
invincible, and have laughed At obsta-
cies. That army feels to-day it viii
march into Richmond. $1,000 or TO-
600 troops is a large force for such
operations, but larger ones have miser-
ably failed 1t is large enough, how
ever, when directed by genius and in
spired by enthusiasm. On the other
hand, the enemy has fed from
General Sherman's path as from that
of a pestilence. His troops feel that
there is little use in opposing our eole
umns, and go as quickly as possible to
the rear. The unpreiudiced topogra-
pher, specializing upon the probable
location of that mysterious region, the
last ditch, would hitherto have as
signed it to South Carolina. Bat the
great fanker" has, in fact Aanked
that famous ditch, and it has been
evacuated through fear of enfilading
Day after day, the theatrical bills Of
the Confederacy announce zone. more
and positively thevery last ditch !" and
still the comedy is played. Branch
vile, Columbia and Charleston fell,
but We see no Derry, no Saragossa, no
Puebla, in their defence Lame and
imDotent conclusion indeed from such
braVado of prOloguel A few days more
and the chance of becoming the sepul-
chre Of the COnfederacy viii be taken
from South Carolina 30
1t was amusing TO find, before Sher-
man had reached Columbia, the Raj
eign paper calling out in alarm, "Shsr-
man IS coming to Raleigh" He was
then two hundred miles distant Bus
in truth, the enemy has learned from
Sherman's rapid marching to snuff the
battle affair off and TO avoid it accord
ingly. His main anxiety seems to be,
like Wemmlck s, 70 reduce his wealth
to portable property and to remove
it The South Caroline campaign illus
trates thoroughly the vast Importance
which we attached to the future moral
effect Of the Georgia campaign. IL is
this feeling of the uselessness Of con
tending, this dispositiOn now besetting
him to concentrate at some point far
ther blck," which is ruinous to the en-
emy's fortunes. That he viii yet de-
liver series of bloody and decisive
battles, we cannot doubt North Caro-
lima will witness, probably, fields like
those which have made Virginia, Ten
nessee and Georgia forever historic.
But the campaign in South Carolina
seems to be nearly over. Sherman
draws near it's borders, and he does so
with the pleasant consciousness that his
march across 1t, from corner to corner,
has been IN unbroken triumph.