The tone of the Southern press grown more and more
desponding. We observe several recent
articles from Southern newspapers which show that hope and confidence are
wavering in view of the situation. It is
quite evident that there is a foreboding of the end now apparently near and
inevitable.
The Richmond Examiner of the 16th of instance “sees but one chance of success from the
net that has been coolly drawn around us, it is to concentrate our energy on
one point and cut it through to convert our defensive into an offensive war and
transfer the scenes of at least a part of these hostilities to the enemy’s own
country. Situated as we are, it is only possible at one point, and
that is Kentucky.”
But since the time when the Examiner discovered one possible
point in Kentucky the army of Zollicoffer, which held the key to Tennessee has
been utterly routed and dispersed. The
examiner anticipated the movement and declared that if the plan of Buell – that
is of flanking Bowling Green on either side – was successful, it must result in
a great disaster. “Its only hope then
was in an offensive campaign across the Ohio from the point that Gen. Johnston
now defends.”
But when the intelligence which had not then reached
Richmond, of the utter rout of Humphrey Marshall’s forces at Prestonburg and of
Zollicoffer’s defeat at Somerset, which took place three days afterwards,
became fully know that “only hope” must have perished.
The Richmond Whig of the 17th apparently to counteract the
discouraging effect of the Examiner of the day previous, said, “Let us turn for
a moment to the West, Price, Polk, Marshall
and Zollicoffer having whipped the cowardly mercenaries at every point.” Of course this was intended to cheer up the
despondent Southern ear, but how much more disheartening must be the reaction
when the truth was known.
The Richmond Dispatch discovers that even in Richmond there
are men who are loyal to the Union and the fervor of its denunciation of such
indicate clearly the fear that Union sentiments may become contagious as the
fortunes of the Confederacy from day to day become more gloomy.
The Trenton (Tennessee) Standard “regrets to say considerable
evidence of disloyalty to the Confederate Government has been manifested in
West Tennessee,” designating the counties of Carroll, Weakly and McNairy as the
localities of formidable Unionism and resistance. In that part of the State, too, where
secession in the start, had unresisted and absolute sway.
The articles we recently published from the Memphis Argus,
where filled with the most bitter hostility to Jeff. Davis and his conduct of
the war. There would be no utterances of
that sort – no recrimination so intensely wrathful except in the abandonment of
all hope of present success under his auspices.
All these things clearly denote the growing suspicion, at
least in the minds of sharp intelligent observers of events, that the
catastrophe is not very far off. They perceive
how completely they are beleaguered by hostile forces on every hand – that the
Port Royal expedition is still in potential activity in the heart of South
Carolina, that Burnside’s expedition, whatever the point to which it is
directed, will meet no adequate opposing force; that Butler has a position on
the Gulf coast where he can assail either Mobile or New Orleans at pleasure;
that Lane’s expedition will soon move down through Arkansas and Louisiana
irresistible. In short, turn which way
they will, now that the hope of our instant war with England, on which they
counted, is dissipated, there is nothing but black, rayless despair. – {St.
Louis Democrat.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 3
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