The English Premier on the battle at Bethel.
[from London Fost (Gov't Org-n) June 26.
It is believed that the Northern army, under command of Gen. Scott, amounts to sixty thousand men, and that the enemy has in the field a force which is supposed to range from seventy to ninety thousand men. The former, if we may judge from the recent affair near Fort Monroe appeared to be disciplined and efficiently commanded.
The regiments which were dispatched under the command of Gen. Pierce to attack the entrenched camp at Great Bethel, were speedily repulsed, and, in the darkness of the night, fired upon each other.
This disaster is attributed to the mismanagement of General Pierce, who, it is stated ‘"lost his head,"’ or to the disinclination of the raw Northern levis to face masked batteries, and to stand ‘"the galling fire of rifled cannon."’ The military operations which hitherto have taken place in America seem to European notions to be utterly inexplicable. In this country we know comparatively little or nothing of the organization of the Southern forces. We are obliged to form our conclusions from the not very trustworthy accounts with which the New York papers favor the world. It is, however, clear that both in the attack upon Fort Sumter and in the recent affair at Great Bethel the Secessionists were well provided with artillery, and that their troops were sufficiently well handled to secure success. We suspect that the delay and hesitation which have marked the policy of the Federal Government are to be attributed mainly to the circumstance that Gen. Scott, an able and experienced officer, knows that militia regiments cannot, in the short space of two months, be converted into well trained and efficient soldiers.
Gen. Butler, who directed the disastrous movement from Fort Monroe, was the other day practicing lawyer, who of course cannot be expected to become a General by inspiration. The Northern army appears to be in great want of officers, owing to the circumstance that the great majority of the officers of the regular army have thrown up their commissions to take service with the Southern Insurgents. In a few days we may expect to hear that Manassas Gap has been the scene of a great struggle, upon the issue of which the fate of the Federal Capital must depend. Hitherto the prestige of success has been altogether on the side of the South--a matter of the greatest importance at the commencement of a campaign.
Mr. Jefferson Davis appears to have a well supplied, well officered, and well organized army; while Mr. Lincoln and Gen. Scott have under their command raw levies more formidable on paper than they are to an enemy in the field. Actual warfare, however, is a sharp, quick instructor, and the Northern population have only to initiate the energy and activity of the Southern insurgents, to learn those habits of discipline and to collect these resources upon which success depends quite as much as noon enduring courage and a good and righteous cause. The two armies were approaching each other, and the fight which seemed imminent at Manassas Gap, will, in all probability decide, not the late of the campaign, but whether the North or the South is to be the invading party.
