Incomparably the most important event of the week has been
the defeat of the North, in their first pitched battle with Southern forces. The great advance from Washington to the South, so long demanded by Northern opinion, was made on the 21st ult., against the advice of General Scott, and was, apparently, mismanaged throughout. The Federal army, under General VDowell, attacked the Confederates en- trenched in Manassas Gap, after a long march and a long fast, and under officers who could not comprehend their orders, and who tried to take batteries by a charge in their teeth with the bayonet. They were driven back, a panic spread fast through the ranks, and the whole army, abandoning its guns, its baggage, and its accoutrements, fled back in disgraceful rout to Washington. General Beauregard; fortu- nately, did not follow up his success, but moved towards Harper's Ferry to attack the capital from the Maryland side, while the Federal Government set itself heartily to repair its misfortune. Eightythonsand new troops were instantly summoned from NewYorkand Pennsylvania, a bill was passed to enable the President to dismiss incompetent offi- cers, and Congress resolved to continue its sittings, and carry on the war in the teeth of all disasters. Up to the date of the latest advices the prospect was gloomy in the extreme. The men who have enlisted for three months are returning home with, the enemy still before them, and the spirit of those who remain is so bad that dragoons are employed to coerce the mutinous soldiery in the streets of the capital. The heart of the nation, however, seems sound; there is no talk of concession; the prominent journalists have promised to abstain from their wild incitements to action, and the people have been convinced by defeat, that in war the only alternatives are to trust or to remove the generals. As a matter of course, the talk of freeing the slaves has revived, but the public is still unprepared for a measure which, if carried out in a spirit of hatred, would cover .the South with blood, and perhaps rivet the chains of the race whose long-continued oppres- sion results in this terrible retribution.
