TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LEE versus MEADE.—A NONSUIT. THE hunger for dramatic effect which the telegraph fosters in modern society disturbs political judgment. It makes men expect as well as long for those coups de thiyitre, those sudden and bewildering strokes of fortune which in a national history are of such rare occurrence. Actuated more or less unconsciously by this feeling, London has for the past week made up its mind that the denouement of the American war is immediately at band. People usually sufficiently sane have been foaming with demonstrations that the struggle be- tween Lee and Meade must be the final one of the war ; that one of the two armies must be crushed, and that the victor might dictate either at Washington or Richmond his own terms of peace. The excitement became the greater as it was perceived that these extreme views were supported by some unquestioned facts. The army with which General Lee had invaded Pennsylvania was undoubtedly the best which the Confederacy had sent forth, and probably the last which, unless encouraged by victory, they would be able to raise. Months ago, when M'Clellan was before Richmond, Pre- sident Davis proclaimed publicly that if the army re- sisting the besiegers was destroyed, Virginia would be compelled to resort to a mountain guerilla war. The Confederate General, moreover, had advanced with singular audacity many miles beyond his supports, to a positicn in which his line of retreat could be crossed by the unemployed Northern force stationed at Harper's Ferry. Had his main army, therefore, been defeated, there was every chance that it would also be destroyed, and that General Meade would have been in Richmond within another month. On the other hand, the Federal Government had but one army ready for action in the East. The militia just called out were unor- ganized, and only half armed or drilled. The armies scat- tered along the coast from the Chesapeake to Mobile would have taken weeks to collect, even had the South no fleet with which to arrest their transport. It was believed, perhaps with reason, that the garrison of Washington had been seriously weakened in order to strengthen Meade, that Baltimore was "wily held down mainly by dread of the gunboats, and that every available regiment had been collected to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. Above all, it was evident that the Northern General, from the direction of Lee's sharp blows, must, if they proved unendurable, retreat towards the Susquehannah, and not upon the Potomac. Had Meade, therefore, been defeated, General Lee might in three days have appeared before Washington, perhaps captured it, and either proclaimed Mr. Davis President of the Union, or imposed upon the dismayed North the boundary of the Potomac. If, in short, either side were routed, that side had lost the game.
History, unfortunately, is never quite so melodramatic, and Gettysburg, like every other engagement, threatens to be only an incident in the long-drawn drama. General Meade, a soldier who cannot be made President except by the vote of a Convention, acknowledged his appointment in a modest general order, and immediately put his army in motion to intercept General Lee. Crossing the Potomac, and moving with considerable but not very great celerity, he arrived, on the 30th June, at Gettysburg, in front of his enemy, and thereby compelled him either to retreat or commence the attack. He could not march on Washington, for there was Meade in his front, or on Baltimore, for that would have exposed his flank; or on Philadelphia with such an enemy in his rear. Neither could he remain where he was without imminent risk of running short of ammunition—the one article which cavalry raids, however unscrupulous, must always fail to secure. There was nothing for it but to fight, and on the 1st, the Confederates, recalling Ewell and the cavalry rayed out into Maryland and the district, turned savagely on the first pursuing division. General Reynolds, its com- mander, instead of retiring on the main body, then only two hours behind, fought where he stood, and was of course beaten. The contest commenced on the Northern side under a feeling of despondency. The men, however, like all the Northern armies when on the defensive, seem to have .held their ground firmly, and during three days during which the contest is known to have lasted there is no evidence on which to base the supposition of Northern defeat. On the contrary, up to 10 'o'clock p.m. on 3rd July, the position of the Northern General was slightly the best. We put out of sight General Meade's despatches, which may be intended to produce an effect, and President Lincoln's telegrams, for he may be wholly deceived, and quote only the patent facts. General Meade was, we greatly fear, somewhat weak-handed, the army of the Potomac having suffered much from desertion, but General French was on his way from Harper's Ferry with the force which ought to have cut off Lee's retreat, and could be only a few hours behind. General Sedgwick, more- over, with 20,000 men, raw but fully-armed militia, chiefly New Yorkers, was advancing from the northward, and if Lee stopped too long at Gettysburg, would place him between two fires, and probably compel him to retreat with new troops advancing behind him. General Lee was, therefore, in this dilemma : if he beat Meade he gained little advantage, for French would fall back on Washington, and, manning the lines, leave time for a new collection of troops, while the necessary losses of men would render a Confederate advance towards Philadelphia a most dangerous enterprize. He would, therefore, even as victor, be strongly tempted to take advantage of the absence of garrison at Harper's Ferry, and, falling back 'across the river, regain his old position in the mouth of the Shenandoah Valley. On the other hand, if Meade beat him he ran every chance of being enveloped by troops who, however raw, would prove most dangerous foes to his vast ordnance and commis- sariat train. His best resource, therefore, and his temptation under any circumstances, would be to recross the Potomac, and so abandon the invasion with no other results than those of exasperating the North, removing Hooker for a General who may be much abler, and considerably reducing his own disposable force. There is nothing to prevent Meade from following him, and the armies in Virginia would once more take up their old position, and the grand scenic denouement end in a repetition of the last tedious Act. That, we confess, and not a great victory or defeat, seems to us the most probable result of movements which, though reported by telegraph, are still unusually intelligible. It will still remain, as it did a month since, for Mr. Lincoln to test the earnestness of his people by enforcing the conscription, or to reduce his plan to a mere campaign of defence, and so tire out the South through the effect of the blockade, and the disintegration of society produced by the slow filtering down of the ideas of the freedom, and the consequent emancipation of all the border States. The war may be ended, of course, by a sudden change of opinion, or by a Western secesssion, or by any one of those earthquakes which occasionally occur in the American political system ; but those who expect its termination from any military stroke, any sudden inspiration of "General's genius," any loss suffered by one corps d'armee, forget alike the passions involved, and the vastness of the area over which they are raging. The contest is not like that which ended at Waterloo, but that which the Roman Empire maintained against the barbarous hordes. Dacia is not so far from the Parthian frontier, Rome less distant from her extremest boundary than Washington is at this moment from the great army which under Rosencranz has captured Tullohoina, or from the army and fleet still hammering away with such dogged pertinacity at the defences of Vicksburg.
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