Yankee army of the Potomac.
A short time will probably solve the next plans of this army. One thing is certain, and that is, if its commanders keep it where it is through the present and ensuing months, death will do much to thin their ranks. The Confederate cause will be assisted not a little by that determination on their part. It would have been infinitely preferable to us to have had a general engagement with the enemy on the north bank of the Chickahominy, or even on the south bank of the James, immediately after Grant slided over on that side. But as such a trial of conclusions could not be had then, and at those places, we are just as well off now to let disease work its telling effects on the army of Northern men, hemmed in, as they are, on the flat land and swamps of the Appomattox and the James. It is better that our enemies should be nursed first, and then die, than that we should have to hazard our men's lives and use our ammunition in the killing of them.We should not be surprised, however, to see the grand army that crossed the Rapidan in May to take Richmond and wind up the Confederacy, depart, bag and baggage, in a very few days. All its plans have failed. Its own presses confess that it has nothing to do and nothing to hope for where it is; but must sit down in inglorious idleness. A position so ridiculous, and one, indeed, so uncomfortable and unhealthy--one in which they must lose thousands by disease — could not be persistently held but in madness. Should they do so, however, they can do us no harm; while our large force, hanging upon the Southern line of the Federal Union, will be able to retaliate at least some portion of the vast robberies and destruction the Yankee hordes have perpetrated in the States of the Confederacy, and imperil Washington city.
But the indications, of late, discourage the idea that the Yankee army will remain here, where its labors are at an end, simply to die. There is too much restiveness at the North--too much fear of the invasion from the South--and the Federal Army of the Potomac will be glad to avail itself of that feeling to leave its painful position and go to the North for the defence of their homes. Thus it is likely we shall have the old conclusion of the campaign by heavy battles on the Potomac; but we feel assumed that those battles will not terminate with advantage to neither side, as in former years.
