The Yankee General Thomas.
--It is not so certain that the Confederates have gained by the exchange of Thomas for Rosecrans, though the appointment of the renegade Virginian has been made a subject of ridicule. A correspondent of the Columbia (S C.) Carolinian, speaking of this new traitor, says:‘ Our journals seem to have settled that Lincoln in relieving Rosecrans has done us a service. This remains to be seen. Rosecrans had shown little judgment in his business affairs, and decidedly failed in all his undertakings before the revolution. He had no experience in the handling of troops until made a general officer. Maj. Gen. Thomas, who has relieved him, on the other hand, served with distinction at Buena Vista, and other battlefields in Mexico; was accustomed to command, and has borne an important part in several battles of this war. Martus and Cromwell were both second in command in victorious armies whose commands were successful on no other occasions, in no other campaigns. At all events, Major General Thomas is the special object of Yankee laudation at present. He was born in Southampton county, Virginia, as Harper's so-called "Journal of Civilization" states, is one of the few Virginians who remained in the Federal service — not, however, as that speech would make appear, "because his honor would not suffer him to rebel against his country's flag." The truth is, Thomas was known in the United States army as a partisan of extreme Southern political ideas. As soon as Lincoln was elected, and the cotton States had seceded, no one was louder than he as to the inexorable duty of Virginia to cast her lot in a Southern Confederacy. But a little while before the secession of that State, Thomas being on his way home Northward, passing through Virginia, fell down a steep railroad embankment at Lynchburg and broke a leg. Thus crippled he was taken to Troy, N. Y, where he had married a Miss Keling, and where he was some time confined to his lodgings, surrounded and worked upon by a potent family influence. Meant me Virginia had seceded, R. E. Lee, his Colonel, had resigned, and he became in his stead a Colonel of the Federal service; events of vast moment had followed with a giant's stride; his honor succumbed to the temptations around him, and to the solicitations of his Northern connections. This once ultra Virginian accepted service against the State and section of his birth and pride — against his life-long principles, and in renunciation of a duty and fealty which he had ever recognized. It was this Virginian who unquestionably saved the Yankee army at Chattanooga by his coolness, his sturdy courage, and his good Tactics — his concentration and intervention of his masses at the critical moment to resist the fierce but unsustained outset of our troops who had not been thus concentrated. Benedict Arnold was not a braver solder than George Thomas, the traitor of Virginia.
A Mobile paper says that Thomas, having been the Lieutenant for years of his present adversary, Bragg, the latter "knows him like a book." On who knows both assures me Thomas knows his old Captain quite as well, and especially in what he is granting as a commander. It is doubtful, therefore, whether we have good cause for gratulation in the exchange of Thomas for Rosecrans.
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