ROSECRANZ'S DEFEAT.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, September 26, 1863. GENERAL ROSECRANZ has received a severe check on his south- ward progress. He has been compelled to retreat from the field of Chickamauga with serious losses of men and material. But in the official language of his opponent, General Bragg, he "still con- fronts " the enemy, whose losses, except in guns, seem to have been greater than his own, and after concentrating his too much scattered forces at less than half a day's march from the field, he still holds the important position which he won by strategy, and again offers battle with undiminished confidence. The insurgents have done, or rather 'have tried to do, what was best for them to do under the circumstances. But they have thus far only in part accomplished their purpose, and at such great cost to them- selves—four general officers killed and five severely woundedt with fiela officers by the score, and rank and file in proportion— that the result is a failure. But the comparative calm with which the news of this sad and adverse event has been re- ceived in the Free States is due, perhaps, more to the very inde- cisive character of the insurgent success and the enormous price which they were obliged to pay for it, than to this well recognized difference between the situations of the two parties to the struggle.
The accounts which we have received of the results of this battle are clear enough, but those that have come to us of its modes and various stages are confused and conflicting, on all sides, to the last degree. It was fought in the north-western corner of Georgia, in a somewhat level but thickly wooded country, which lies south-west of Chattanooga and Rossville (the latter a village not five miles from the former), and through which winds the Chickamauga, a small stream which give its uncouth and hitherto unknown name to a field which has now made it historical. General Rosecranz seems to have been marching south-west- ward with slow and cautions steps, less, however, because he feared any immediate attack than because of his titter ignorance of this remote and unreclaimed country, of which there are no maps, and which is as unknown to us as it is to you, but which Bragg, of course, knew thoroughly. His army, which should be- fore this have been reinforced by General Burnside, was moving " upon these three different routes," the three corps of Thomas, Crittenden, and McCook appearing to have been actually not in military communication. Bragg, as we know by his own order before the battle, had been "largely reinforced" from Virginia. the additions consisting of picked regiments from Bill's and Long- street's commands, both generals being present in person. With a force probably greater by one-third than that of his adversary (leaving out Burnside's army, which was not more than a hundred miles off) Bragg fell upon Rosecranz without skirmishing, evi- dently intending to crush his three separate corps in detail, and then to do the same for Burnside. But Rosecranz, although he seems to have trusted too much to the demoralization of Bragg's own army by their series of retreats, and to have been unprepared for a pitched battle, was not surprised. He had discovered the swift approach of the enemy, and his heavy reinforcement, and had even divined his plan of attack. Not to attempt the unravelling and re-arranging of the various vague and confused accounts of the two days' battle,—which both sides agree was most desperately contested,—at the opening of the fight Bragg found that his plan was foiled, as far as its easy accomplishment was concerned. The weight of his columns produced their due impression at first ; but he soon discovered that the flower of Rosecranz's army had been concentrated on the left in anticipation of his attack, and that it was under a general—Thomas—who bad firm- ness and skill adequate to the occasion. After a day of dreadful fighting, in which guns were taken and retaken more than once, at evening the battle came to a temporary close with the advantage somewhat on the Union side. But Bragg, having either more flexibility and sagacity than either side has given him credit for, or being counselled by the officers from the army of Virginia, availed himself of the interior lines which he held, and giving up the plan of cutting Rosecranz off from Chattanooga, which he had found impossible, he massed his army in the night against our centre and right, leaving enough, however, for a strong feint upon the left. Rosecranz, moving upon a much longer line, could not
support his centre and right soon enough after he had discovered the change in the attack ; and, overwhelmed by the force thrown against them, which consisted mainly of Hill's and Longstreet's corps, they gave way, exposing, of course, General Thomas's right flank. He, however, proved able to take care of himself, and held the enemy at bay while he fell back upon Rossville. This was on Sunday : the first day's battle was on Saturday. The right and centre retreated to Chattanooga in as good order as any army ever retreats from a field which it cannot hold; and on Monday General Thomas, being attacked at Rossville, repulsed the enemy and joined the main body at Chattanooga. Thither the insurgents, sorely crippled in the contest, have not ventured to follow Rosecranz ; and he is that kind of man that if they wait too long he will move out and attack them, unless, indeed, they are in overpowering numbers.
And now we think we hear the cheers of the London Times and the Saturday Review, and of Mr. Roebuck, and Mr. Beresford Hope, and Lord Robert Cecil, et id genus omne. But we do not mind them as once we did. We are girded to our task; we are absorbed now in what is before us ; and the derisive cheers from the Opposition benches, pass in at one ear and out at the other. Yet now 1 hear you saying, kindly saying and considerately, I willingly believe, " will not our Yankee correspondent admit that when he spoke of having ' to all intents and purposes put down' the great revolt, he showed that trans-Atlantic temperament' which ' innocently exaggerates its own successes, and mistakes its expectations for its achievements?" Not a whit. Yet, remember that I answer only for myself, and not for the temperament or the judgment of others. But neither I nor most of those with whom I associate were " much elated," though we were much gratified, by General Gilmore's admirable destruction of Fort Sumter. I only used the fate of that fort—the first place at which war was waged by the insurgents against the Re- public—as an illustration of the course and end which in my judgment will be those of all attempts against our national existence. Remember that, after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, I told you that the rebellion was badly scotched, but not yet killed, that it had yet vitality and would die hard; and that more recently I said that you would see the waters recede before they rose farther. Let me tell you something again by way of illustration. Our Irish riots, which introduced me to the readers of the Spectator as your correspondent, began, as you may remember, on a Monday morning. On Tuesday night, about eleven o'clock, I was in the Chief Commissioner's room at the police head-quarters. I asked him what was the aspect of affairs. With that quiet, matter-of-course way which people in his position always get into, he answered, " Well I think we are getting on quite handsomely ; doing very well indeed." General Brown, the United States officer then in command here, a florid man with snow-white hair, whiskers, and moustache, and regular army in every line of face and figure, who sat on the other side of the table, merely looked up and nodded. " Stop," said the Chief Commissioner, " let us see and be sure." He touched two bell- pulls behind him, and spoke through two tubes, " Send to the —th, and —th precincts for brief reports." In less than three minutes the telegraph had done its work and the report came. He turned to me, and said, " The riot can't make head now anywhere against the force at my disposal ; we hold the city." I went home, and using the very phrase in question, said that the riot was, to all intents and purposes, put down. And so I knew it was—though after that there were fights in the street in which Minie balls flew thick, and even grape-shot were used—because from that time I knew that the power of the Government, National, State, and Municipal, would increase, while that of the rioters would diminish; and so that although there might be a few angry dashes and some bloodshed, the hold of my friend the commisioner upon the city could not be shaken off, but would each hour become tighter and tighter. So with this rebellion. When Lee marched bootless back from Gettysburg, and Grant marched into Vicksburg, and Banks into Port Hudson, and Gilmore won a foothold on James Is- land from which he could batter down Fort Sumter and bom- bard Charleston, and disaffection broke out in North Carolina, the rebellion was to all intents and purposes put down, although the field of Chickamauga and others like it were in the future. The hold that the Government has got of the country can never be shaken off—at least, without outside help—and the power of the insurgents must henceforth constantly decrease.
We all rejoice greatly at the determination of the British Govern- ment to stop the rebel rams. Had they been allowed, by the connivance of your Government, or by its unwillingness to ask or assume the power necessary to detain them, to leave your shores and
attack us, a war would at once have broken out which would soon have assumed terrible proportions. You will acquit me of the folly of asking your attention to the vapourings of a sensation press, or the wordy braggadocio of pothouse politicians. But the feeling and the determination upon this matter were unmistakeable. It was only a day before the arrival of the welcome news that a gentle- man of high culture—that is, as high as a Yankee can have— and of staid and sober temperament—as staid and sober as a Yankee can be—a man who has represented iu New York a large and important British company for many years, said, as a few of us sat at luncheon, "If the British Ministers do not stop those rams, I am for declaring war and making reprisals to-morrow." Ile was not bragging (although all Yankees always brag), but went on sadly to say, " Life, even national life, is not so valuable as to be preserved at loss of self-respect ; and a man or a people that quietly submits to nose-pulling cannot have self-respect or the respect of others. If it is not worth while now for the British Government to do by us as we have done by them in like case, we must do our best to make it worth their while in future." Such is the feeling, I assure you, of our best and soberest people. There- fore we rejoice. Some of us have been gladdened, too, by the stories which the officers of our frigate Macedonian tell us of the kindness and courtesy with which they were treated in three British ports ; your officers even of highest rank putting themselves much out to show ours attention, and giving them privileges rarely accorded to strangers. Is this mere official recognition of button by button—mere professional courtesy? Hardly ; for at Cher- bourg the French officers were barely and tardily civil. So it was with our military commissioners to Sebastopol. What means this treatment of individual Yankees with such respect and good- fellowship, while the nation is treated, and spoken of in such a manner that the London correspondent of the New York Times records in this language the impressions which he receives in com- mon with thousands of others among you ?
"It is a pity that America, or the Northern portion of it, cannot win the affections of this mother country of ours. I am afraid it is past praying for. The simple truth is, we are detested cordially, and dreaded."
This inconsistency both puzzles and grieves us much.
A YANKEE.
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