The campaign.
The movements of Grant will be found recorded in the news columns of this day's issue. He has certainly taken the road to the Peninsula, following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor McClellan, to whose sagacity in taking that route he thereby says the highest tribute, and to whom he has thus afforded a great and signal triumph over his enemies and detractors in the press, in Congress, and in the Cabinet. It would have been difficult for Grant to have made a more intelligible confession of defeat, or to have given the lie more palpably and more directly to the bulletins which his vanity and want of principle induced him to issue from Spotsylvania.--After a series of defeats, the bloodiest and most terrible of the whole war, he did not hesitate to proclaim himself the victor in every engagement, and declared his determination "to fight it out on this line," (the line of the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad,) "if it took him the whole summer." In spite of this manful declaration he has been compelled to abandon that line and to take up another, with a different base, which he could have assumed without the loss of a single man. He has thrown away seventy thousand men, as though they were of no more value than so much trash, and has gained nothing whatever by the operation. He has gotten his soldiers whipped, killed off by tens of thousands, and cowed to the last degree without having inflicted any comparative damage on his adversary, in the vain attempt to reach Richmond by the direct route; and now rather than meet Lee again in battle he abandons that route entirely. There is at least one happy man in Yankeedom to-night, and that is George B. McClellan.What will Grant do next? Will he transfer his whole army to the Southside, unite with Butler, and endeavor to starve Richmond out, by sending his cavalry to cut the railroads at various points? This would be to maœuvre as we would wish him. Will he follow closely in McClellan's footsteps, and making the York his base, advance directly upon Richmond by the line of the railroad? By pursuing this course he will come full in front upon our system of fortifications, the most tremendous this side of Sebastopol, which even in their imperfect state proved too hard for McClellan. Will he try the James river as a base, leaving Butler on the other side; or will he bring that hero over to this? These are questions which, no doubt, have already suggested themselves to his mind, and which we have just as little doubt he is as unable to answer as we are. His game is a very difficult one to play at best, and it is rendered still more difficult than it would otherwise have been, by the tremendous checks which he received at its very outset.
While the whole world will hear with amazement, not unmingled with derision, that this General, who but a few weeks ago promised to march through and over all opposition into Richmond, has already been compelled to change his base, after sustaining a series of defeats, there will be but one opinion and one vow with regard to his illustrious adversary. We doubt whether in the whole history of war there was ever a more brilliant series of manœuvres than that by which Gen. Lee baffled and almost annihilated the army of Grant in Spotsylvania. We are confident that no other living General would ever have conceived them, nor, leaving Napoleon out of the question, are we altogether certain that they could have been devised and executed by any other that ever lived. We have not room to describe them as they deserve, nor do we believe that we, or any body not military by education and habit, is capable of doing justice to them. Experience has not failed to produce a beneficial effect even upon Gen. Lee. His first campaign was a most brilliant first campaign; but we doubt whether even he, in 1862, was equal to the grand conceptions which are so peculiarly characteristic of this short campaign.
With regard to General Johnston's campaign in Northern Georgia, we know no more than the telegraph has made us acquainted with. We would observe, how ever, that we see no reason for the uneasiness which so many persons hereabouts express, but which the Georgians do not appear to feel. Gen Johnston has fallen back, not because he has been beaten, but apparently upon a well considered and well matured plan. Doubtless he will give the enemy battle, and, we believe, beat him, too, at the proper time and place. Patience, good friends; patience and courage!
