THE NORTHERN SUCCESSES. T HOUGH the "gleam of success" which has
attended the Federal cause is, perhaps, as important as the news of the surrender of Sebastopol and the battle of the Tchernaya would have been to the allies in the Crimean War if received at once, it is yet quite true that the not very highly-coloured antici- pations which we ventured to put forth last week of the pro- bable issue of the Pennsylvanian invasion correspond far more nearly to the actual situation than the rather imaginative statements of the Northern Press. On the 3rd July—the same day apparently on which General Pemberton proposed to General Grant the surrender of Vicksburg,—not from any necessity, but "in order to stop the effusion of blood "- General Meade's army defeated the last and most furious assault made for the third successive day on his position be- fore Gettysburg, with heavy loss to the Confederate army, and on the morning of the 4th July the Northern forces occupied Gettysburg, General Lee's army being in full retreat upon Hagerstown, while a thousand miles away in the south-west the long contest for Vicksburg, and virtually for the Mis- sissippi, was closed by the unconditional surrender of the city to General Grant. It was natural that successes so great after so long a course of at least apparent failure, should have raised the mercurial temper of the American press to that point at which a rational estimate of the position becomes impossible. The later accounts, however, show, as we veutured to predict, that General Lee, even though seriously defeated, was not likely to be routed or crushed, and there is still no reason to doubt that unless General Meade shows far higher qualities as a commander than any which the American war has yet developed on either side, Lee will make good his retreat across the Potomac, whether after or without another contest with the Northern army. Looking to all the precedents of the war,—which are, of course, always a doubtful guide, especially when one general's qualities are barely tested, and the numbers on both sides are known to us only through the a priori intuitions of Northern editors, —the best surmise seems to be that Lee, like a good general, is only standing on the defensive till he has secured the safe passage of his stores and his wounded across the Potomac, and that our next news will be that he has left that position, unless previously attacked by General Meade, to follow his supplies once more into the valley of the Shenandoah. It may, indeed, be otherwise, if we could either believe that General Beauregard has already reinforced him with a force poetically estimated at 40,000 men (the exact number of the Cornish army which are raised in song to demand the extradition of Tre, Pol, and Pen), or that General Meade's re- inforcements would swell his army sufficiently to enable him to attack the strong position occupied by his enemy with any reasonable hopes of success. But if the new forces received on each side be anything like equal, it seems most rational to expect either a fresh indecisive duel, followed by a retreat of the Southern army into its own territory, or a retreat without ' that preliminary encounter. Since the beginning of the war lwe must remember no victory has ever yet been followed up , with crushing -vigour by either combatant, and the conditions ' of warfare between these huge half-disciplined armies probably render the difficulty of delivering new blows with military alacrity and precision after a hard- fought field, almost in- superable. The most reasonable presumption certainly is that Lee will save himself and his army, and that the net result, to the South, of the Pennsylvanian invasion will be the purchase of considerable stores of provisions at the cost of some 20,000 men put hors de combat.
Not so slight, however, will be the result to the North. The victory of Gettysburg has restored courage and con- fidence to the people, infused new life into the army, and given the Government fair reason to hope that they have at last found a leader who can cope even with Lee without dis- grace. There can be no doubt, without falling into the exalted strains of the Northern journals, that we may estimate the battle of Gettysburg as a very creditable military achieve- ment for General bfea.de. Appointed at the very end of June to the command of the army of which he had previously led only a division, he has directed all its operations with so much ability that within a week from his assumption of the command he was fighting in an admirable position of his own choosing the hastily concentrated forces of the enemy. Northern accounts state that no march of the war has seen so littte straggling as the march which ended in the battle of Gettys- burg. Military critics agree that the position assumed, and the ability with which the advantages were manipulated on the days of battle, were highly honourable to the skill of the commander. With the Sugar-loaf Mountain in his rear, General Meade appears to have formed his army into a sort of wedge, of which the Cemetery Hill outside Gettysburg was the apex, presenting to the enemy two faces, inclined at an acute angle to each other. "One of the most important features of the line of battle," says an eye-witness, " was the facility it afforded to each portion to reinforce any point of attack. The enemy was compelled to march from seven to nine miles in going from one wing to the other, whereas three miles on the diameter of a circle" [this means only "three ranee across," the circle being a term which the American mind seems helplessly compelled to associate with diagonals, but here quite irrelevantly inscribed within a triangle for no purpose whatever, graphic or otherwise] " was the distance between Meade's extreme infantry flanks. This circumstance gave great advantage, and several times enabled the com- manding general to concentrate rapidly his whole force at the point of danger." This is a point which even the unprofes- sional mind can understand as redounding to the good sense of General Meade, and it is quite certain that, whatever his powers of manceuvring may or may not be, he has proved his capacity for choosing a position and handling troops on the field. General Lee's force was no doubt greatly superior in numbers to his own, and though Meade had the enormous ad- vantage of a defensive position, a less able leader would have been confused by the various feints of the Confederate attack, and not have had the proper force to resist the last furious onset on his left. As it is, though he has certainly not proved his right to be regarded as a military genius, he has gained a fair claim to the confidence of his troops and the respect of the democracy. Meade must now rank with Rosecrantz, if not with Grant as a military commander ; while whatever success he may achieve will, of course, produce far more impression on the greater and wealthier States from being so much nearer to the political stage.
But how will the novelty of these marked successes affect the Northern cause ? The proximate effect is clear enough— to aid very much the efforts of the recruiting sergeants, and to facilitate the enforcement of the conscription. The same measure which, if enforced for an apparently losing cause, might have produced revolution, may even be thoroughly popular when enforced for an army which the people regard with pride aud hope. The conscription mob in New York —in itself no more dangerous than our press-gang riots— may prove to be serious yet ; it would certainly have been most dangerous before the battle of Gettysburg, and might have been supported openly by the State Government. But unless Meade is soon and seriously beaten, we think the effect of the news from Vicksburg and the success in Pennsylvania must be a large extension of the military resources of the North and of the popularity of the war. But this admitted, how will it act upon the cause for which the North is fighting ? It may produce offers, official or unofficial, from the South, intended to bring about a com- promise. The New York Herald,—wicked, blind, and braggart leader of the wicked, blind, and braggart—already says, that "in view of the fact that the work of putting down the re- bellion may be said to be substantially accomplished, the only thing that remains is to consider,"—in effect, the most shortsighted and iniquitous compromise that can be adopted to hasten re-union and peace. The Herald is of course fertile in silly and shameful suggestions of new mean- nesses. It would have President Lincoln withdraw his word pledged to the slaves, and asserts, probably without believing, that Mr. Seward had had the audacity to propose this in the Cabinet ; in a word, it would give the slaveholders all they want, on condition that the Union thus iniquitously restored should use its united resources to punish France and England, and apply the Monroe doctrine by driving the French out of Mexico, and, we suppose, the English out of Canada. This, of course, is the mere insanity of purposeless vapouring ; but it shows one great danger to the North in too great suc- cess—the danger of waiving the only principles that could make war justifiable. And, unfortunately, there is another and less openly shameful form of the same great danger. There is a rumour (probably unfounded enough) that Vice-President Stephens, who lately came down the James River with a flag of truce and request for an interview with President Lincoln, was authorized to propose "a separate Government of the North and South, but only one President, so as to avoid inter- ference with Southern property and negroes, but to secure one foreign policy for both sections." Were this proposal modified so as to restore the Constitution fully in other respects, but require for the President's election a clear majority both in the Slave States and the Free, there would be great temptation in it to all the Democrats and enemies of the emancipation policy. We confess that we have not yet any sufficient confid- ence in the virtue of the North, or even in its sagacity, to feel sure that any such proposition would be indignantly rejected, and we are quite sure that disunion is to be preferred a thousand times to any compromise so iniquitous. Our chief trust is in the daily increasing conviction that, quite apart from principle and sentiment, political co-ope- ration with a slave power is henceforth and for ever impracticable, —a certain source of feud, not of peace. The Anti-Slavery party cannot even yet be called strong,—but its influence has multiplied so indefinitely within the last two years, that it would assuredly paralyze all political action on such a scheme as this. That party haunted the terrified and cowardly imagination of the South in the weak and miserable minority it could alone number in 1860. Now it would absolutely scare them from any dream of legislative union,—and an Executive Union for foreign affairs without a Legislative Union in home affairs would be a mere monstrosity incapable of life. A people amongst whom black regiments are already popular, a country in which 2,600 applications for commissions in black regi- ments rather than in white have already been received, is no fit subject for a Siamese-twin bond with a people and country of slaveholders. The Presidential tie would constitute exactly such a tie ;—a band of living organization between mutually hated and hating foes.
On the whole, we trust there is no substantial danger of any issue so shameful to this fearful struggle, on which the mark of Providential purpose is so clearly traced. We should be disposed to wish for a Federal success, so far tempered by checks that the Federal Government could be induced to be content for the present with the end they have so nearly achieved, and offer recognition to a Confederacy lying some- where between the Atlantic, the line of the Potomac, and the line of the Mississippi, thus lopping off the whole future of slavery in the Western States and territories, and finally ex- cluding it from Texas and Mexico. But we are not so san- guine as to suppose that the North, if successful enough to gain this, will consent to renounce its long dream of a united con- tinent. One thing only we hold with ever increasing faith, that whether by the virtues of the North or by its sins, whether by the military heroism of the South or by its obstinate pride in its deepest degradation, God is slowly working out the one great end which He revealed ages ago as the political purpose of all true government, human or divine, "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke." We regard the fall of Vicksburg and the success of Gettysburg as links in that purpose which even men can trace. But for the present, at least, ourimpression is thatnothing can do the North more good than gradual progress, qualified by morti- fying defeats,—since a certain and visible check to thepower for evil of such unworthy politicians as Mr. Seward, is probably no unimportant element in the ripening of this great revolution.
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