The mails by the Asia.
views of the London Press on the battles before Richmond.
The mails by the Asia are interesting. The London papers all have editorial remarks on the battles before Richmond. We make several extracts:
The battles before Richmond.
[From the Manchester Guardian] At length the blow which the besiegers of Richmond have been so long inviting has fallen. Gen. McClellan, when we last heard from him directly. was congratulating himself with still undisturbed self-complacency on some little advantage which be represented to have been gained at the most advanced part of his lines. We abstain from speculating on the heavy loss certain to have been incurred in the defeat of such magnitude, and likely enough to be counterpoised by an equally heavy damage to the winning side. Merely on the ground, however, of the change of position, which is acknowledged, we entertain no doubt that this battle practically involves the raising of the siege of Richmond. General McClellan may indeed be able, by aid of the undisturbed Federal command of the navigation of James river, to retain for an indefinite time the position in which he has taken refuge. Nothing lies between him and the enemy on one side except the very ground over which the Confederates advanced with so much effect against the Federal General Casey's division at the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, and we have no doubt they are as willing to follow up as successful blow as to strike one.But even if the struggle were over for the present at the date of our last advices, and if it were feasible for the Federal army to hold its own in accordance with the dictates of a characteristically false pride, all idea of taking the Confederate capital must, we feel convinced, be abandoned until the advantages so arduously contended for, and now so quickly lost, shall have been regained. That is work not to be done in the present campaign, if at all. Richmond has a reprieve, and the chances, never very great, of the city's having ultimately to yield to a Federal conqueror, are reduced to exceedingly small dimensions.
[from the London times]
By this time the battle before Richmond has been as fully discussed as the meagerness of the news received by telegraph will allow. The impression which this great military event has made on English society is not to be mistaken. If there were before any who thought that the resistance of the South was likely to be overcome by the exploits of Gen. McClellan's army before Richmond, they are now undeceived. It cannot be doubted that a battle of the highest importance has been fought, and that the Federal army has been thrown back a considerable distance — several miles indeed — from its former position.But if the Virginia campaign has ended in a manner which shows that the Confederates are able to carry on a long war, the fighting at Charleston shows that, even at isolated points, they are prepared to receive an enemy. The ambiguity of the telegraph prepared us to believe that the battle before Charleston ended in a victory for the South.--The thing is now made clear. A Federal General, plainly ignorant of the enemy he was to attack, and the defences he was likely to meet, advanced with some 1,200 men to the attack of a battery, and he seems to have been as completely defeated as the British were at New Orleans, and perhaps much in the same manner.
The moral to be deduced from these events is clear. There is probably, at the present moment, in Europe, not a single society where the defenders of this hateful and atrocious war could make themselves heard. The impartial opinion of every civilized nation is being more and more strongly expressed against the enterprise in which the Federals are embarked. The orators of the Northern States may inveigh as much as they please against the interference of England, and the mob may shout scorn of English advice and defiance of English arms; but English opinion is after all, the opinion of the world, and we may hope that, in spite of affected indignation and high flown eloquence, the good sense which has uniformly marked our counsels in this affair may at length prevail.
We must repeat and repeat again our earnest recommendation to the Federals to put an end to this horrible war. What have they gained by it? What can they ever gain by it? Do they think that these men of their own race, whose exploits they are daily witnessing, can ever be so subjugated as to submit to the yoke which a Hunter and a Butler are preparing for them? Can they, in fact, wish for such a consummation? Do they not feel the common pride of humanity in the exploits of a gallant people, who are defending their homes by a display of the most transcendent valor and devotion.? There would be no disgrace in desisting from the hopeless and, consequently, wicked attempt to conquer and govern the South. Every one knows that the Northern man is as good as the Southern, and that if any section of the late Union were invaded by the rest it would assuredly give the same proofs of unflinching resolution. The whole difference between the two belligerents is that the South is thoroughly in earnest, and fights as for life and death. This makes up for want of food, of arms, of medicines, of all that makes war easy. As long as this resolution lasts, and several millions of people are in arms to resist subjugation, so long must the efforts of the North meet with the failure which has thus far attended the Virginia campaign of 1862.
[from the London News.]
As it is not to be supposed that the Northerners exaggerate their own disasters, we are compelled to suppose that Gen. McClellan has been obliged to retreat after a severe battle.* * * * *
We cannot profess to be greatly surprised at this disaster. We have for some time looked in vain for any Federal preparations in Virginia corresponding the change of the general military situation which has been taking place for the last three or four months. The dispersion of a large portion of the Federal army in expeditions and garrisons, simultaneous with the concentration of the Confederate army through the abandonment of a large number of its positions, constituted a new relation between the two collective forces, the importance of which, it seems to us, has not been appreciated at Washington, It ought to have been clearly perceived that every Federal success in the outlying portions of the scene of war would tend to increase the difficulties of Gen. McClellan, who should have been reinforced accordingly. This was not done, and a reverse is the natural consequence.
Serious as this reverse of the Federals undoubtedly is, it would be a great mistake to see in it any decisive character. The people of the North will be surprised, and possibly for the moment alarmed, at the defeat of the most numerous of their armies. But we do not expect that they will lose in a moment that proud consciousness of immensely superior strength which they have acquired by experience, and which they see reflected in the opinion of the world. They will more probably ascribe their disasters to a misapplication of the resources they have placed at the disposal of the Government, and while increasing those resources from their boundless store, will take precautions for their better employment. Hitherto checks have only provoked them to mightier exertions; and, without paradox, at the very moment when their largest army has suffered a reverse, the North knows itself stronger as the South knows itself weaker than at any previous stage of the war. While, therefore, we recognize the importance of the Confederate success; we see in it an event which is likely to draw out rather than shorten the war; for whether we suppose the North to be fighting to restore the Union to its former territorial integrity, or simply, as some advise, for a frontier, it is certain that its citizens cannot afford to retire from the contest until they have conclusively established their superiority.
