Year: 1864

With the particulars Of the unsuccessful
assault on our right, made by the rebels on
the 7th instant, the telegraph has ere this
made your readers ofcourse familiar. Since
then the lines Of this army have been quiet,
with the exception of occasional ineffec-
tive shelling by the enemy's batteries of
our extreme left, where our lines rest on
the James river.


Though quiet prevails, however, along
the front, the preparations go forward as
certainly and almost as remorselessly as
fate, which shall compass the fall, at no
distant day of the doomed city, whose
spires are in sight yonder, beyond che
Vdu1 de triezS OF almost impregnable forti-
fcations.- 1t is true that similar predic,
tions have before been indulged in, With
apparently the same confidence and siu-
cere belief, and that the coveted prize has,
like an igDus fGtUus, repeatedly eluded our
grasp. Any one, however, familiar with
the former campaign against Richmond,
with the character of the army defending
the city then and now, to say nothing of
the still more important difference in for
mer andpresent commanders of our own
forces, will, l think, find it no difficult
matter to share in the confidence l have
expressed above OF our early capture ofthis
rebel stronghold and capital.


The difficulties which lie in the pathway
between her and the city are many and
formidable. The army which mans those
Notifications embraces the iron veterans
who have battled desperately on many a
hard fought field, and will fight again with
desperate valor, but their ranks are fear
ly thin, and there are no recruits where
with to fill them, except the unwilling and
inexperienced dragged from the Offices OF
/ ~, - IL
the public necessity had hitherto compell-
these are really, with their want of military
experience and drill, an element of weak
ness rather than strength.


Moreover their hearts and the hearts OF
their leaders are growing faint with dis
pair, as they see our augmenting army
drawing closer and closer around them,
and our vast resources still unexhausted,
while their avenues of supplies are being
severed one by one, and growing daily
more precarious, and finally their hopeless
financial collapse seems to leave them little
cause to seek the preservation of gov
eminent of which the exchequer is bank
rupt, the capital no longer place Of safe
ty or asylum from besieging cannon, and
the officers of which seem to think no
longer of anything except to secure their





and shield for themselves of the breasts oi
their deluded countrymen.


But apart from these considerations, no
effort heretofore made for the capture OF
Richmond ever had SO firm and immova-
BILE grasp upon the portals of that doom
ed and fated capital. The Significance and
real Importance of the the recent move.
ment of Gen. Buffers army across the
James to the surprise and capture of Fort
HsrrisonIon our left centre, aud in fact, the
entire series of works composing our pres.
ent lines, grow more really valuable the
more we become familiar with their bear
ing upon the other remaining defenses ol
the city. r-


Il is not saying too much to claim tha,
Fort Harrison, which Is situated Oh the
crest OF hill, a little to the north of the
Varina road, distant about one mile from
the river, nearly due east from Chapin's
Bluff, and six miles from Richmond, is in
itself, taken separately, equal In strength
with proper garrison, to the most fOrmid-
able of the defenses this side of Richmond
The desperate efforts which the rebels
made to dispossess us of it, soon after Its
capture by Gen Buffers forces. and the
fearful slaughter which this attempt cost
them, attest both its strength and the
value which they attach to its possession
Their desperate and bloody assault on our
right on Thursday, the 7th inst, was an
other despSring and unsuccessful effort,
which they hoped might render our pres
ent position untensble aud compel its
abandonment inclusiVea of course Of our
hold upon that fort Every effort which
they now make, thins yet more and more
their depleted rRnks, and every step that
Butler's army takes toward Richmond
draws more taut- their atteB1ated IiHes;
which shall as certainly snap ere long as