Adversity the test of fortitude.
The reverses brought upon us should be accepted as the test of our fortitude and our strength. Heretofore our greatest achievements have followed close upon our most embarrassing situations. Difficulties and perils have never yet failed to bring out the true spirit and energy of the Southern people. Nor will they fail us now. Before the summer's campaign is concluded we shall have encouraging news to slate the confident and cheer the desponding.It is not in the nature of most men and nations to be proof against the bad effects of prosperity. They are too apt to be deluded into a sense of security and self sufficiency that, if persevered in, must prove fatal. The Southern arms had been crowned with a series of triumphs of the most brilliant character.-- The army and the people had adopted the idea of invincibility. Whether this led to ill-advised movements or not on the part of our Generals we are not able to say; but it had certainly imparted to the public mind a feeling of safety that has been rather rudely disturbed by recent events.
In quick succession we have had the drawn battle of Gettysburg and the retreat of Gen Lee to the Potomac-- the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and the capture of Morgan's expedition in Ohio. Our armies in the Southwest have been, with small exception, inactive, while the enemy has reduced the two garrisons on the Mississippi, by which some 35,000 or 40,000 men have been lost to the Confederacy. Why there was not some concentration of our forces under Johnston. Bragg, and Holmes, at some point or other, to strike a blow while the enemy was thus engaged, is a question those officers alone can answer. But there was not, and the enemy having achieved one great labor finds himself free to move where he thinks best, forcing upon our troops activity at last to elude him.
These events create anxiety in the public mind; but if the South is only true to the character it has thus far exhibited, they will arouse it to a more determined resistance. It is well, if these reverses were to come, that they have followed so soon our own triumphs. The nation had not time to relapse so deeply late apathy as to put it beyond recovery. If it slept at all, it was on the and will meet the enemy and repulse him just when he fancies that he has again crushed the rebellion. He already begin to find that it is not a perfectly easy matter to overrun the country, even where our men retreat before him. Grant has found it necessary to quit following Johnston, and himself take the back track to Vicksburg.
Adversity will bring out only in bother relief the virtues of the people of the South--the virtues of courage, constancy, and faith in a Just Cause and a Just Providence.
