Our Army Correspondence.
The report of the Yankees crossing at Waterloo is untrue. The main body of the enemy holds the position along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad it has held for several weeks past, excepting an occasional change of camps. If I could anticipate them, I could not speak with propriety of our own designs; but if a change in the present situation depends on the will of Gen. Meade, the utter absence of all indications of an advance by him shows its prospect to be more remote than ever.Agreeably to the President's proclamation and the General Order from the headquarters of the Army, yesterday was generally observed as a day of Fasting and Prayer. Religious exercises were held in the different camps by the Army Chaplains. At the headquarters of Gen. Ewell a very appropriate discourse was delivered by that able divine, Rev. Dr. Lacy, Chaplain of the corps, from 16th verse, 6th chapter, 2d Kings "Fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." I will not attempt an outline of the gifted speaker's discourse — powerful, eloquent and embellished with most beautiful imagery, and which deeply impressed a large auditory, principally of soldiers, who attended by regiments, with their respective officers, and whose cleanly, comfortable and healthful appearance furnished a pleasing rebuke to the croakers at home. Gens. Lee, Ewell and other distinguished officers were present. The first named, it is said, invariably attended services on such occasions at the headquarters of the lamented Jackson.
It has now become a question whether the enemy has not determined on a change of tactics, abandoned the "on to Richmond" idea, and is not preparing to transfer the seat of war for the present to the West and South. The frequent attempts against Richmond have ended in disastrous failures, and the strange inactivity of Meade, accountable on no other hypothesis than the weakness and disaffection of his army since the Pennsylvania campaign, proves that he has no reasonable ground of hoping to accomplish what men able as himself, and backed by powerful and as well equipped armies, have failed to achieve before him. Northern journals inform us that he has detached troops — in some instances regiments of them — to proceed to certain points in the North for the purpose of bringing on conscripts. A little reflection is sufficient to perceive that this is merely a subterfuge, as such a force, especially in the critical situation of the army, is unnecessary for such a purpose. The object undoubtedly is to use these ostensible conscript guards to overawe the people at home, and to suppress the first manifestation of another popular uprising against the enforcement of the draft and other obnoxious measures of the Government, monitions of which have already been given in New York and other cities. Meade's army, if the abandonment of the design against Richmond from this direction be correct, will probably be used conjointly for the purposes of maintaining the will of the Government in the Northern States, and as a camp of instruction, or reservoir as it were, from which the depleted armies of the West and South may be recruited. The asseverations of the Yankee papers to the contrary, Meade is too weak for offensive operations on the scale requisite for the overthrow of the army of Northern Virginia and the taking of Richmond; and the practical results of the draft thus far show that it will end in the replenishing of the treasury by millions of "greenbacks," but the securing of few recruits for this army, and the majority of these unreliable, and of the worst material in the districts of the North.
The evidence is in favor of the belief that the main strength and efforts of the enemy will be concentrated and directed against our strongholds in the South and West, and then to give the "rebellion" the coup de grace by a united blow against Richmond. The fall of Vicksburg is followed by an exhibition of energy at Charleston no less desperate and persevering, to be succeeded probably by an attempt at Savannah and Mobile.--Against the latter but a moiety of Grant's army will be directed in combination with the fleet, while the remainder may form a junction with Rosecrans, with the view, as their avowal and oft-repeated intentions render reasonable, of securing Chattanooga and East Tennessee, and then Atlanta, Ga., the heart of the railroad circulation of the South. This done, and the Confederacy split again, the rebellion is virtually crushed, as they will believe, and the fall of Richmond only a question of time. Meantime, Gen. Meade, too weak to advance himself, and in the event of an advance by Gen. Lee, has placed his army beyond the Rappahannock, in a position he is daily strengthening, or so as to easily fall back to another more defensible. How far these crude speculations are founded in truth, time will reveal.
