GENERAL SUMMARY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 66, 2 October 1862, Page 6 (Supplement)

GENERAL SUMMARY.

The rapid and extraordinary changes that have taken place in the fortunes of the war warn us of the folly of speculating upon the issue. A few weeks ago the North seemed to have the South helplessly at its mercy. New Orleans had fallen, Memphis had fallen, Yorktown had fallen, Charleston was lulling, and Richmond was expected to he abandoned every hour. Beauregard had lied from Corinth, no man knew whither ; General -Jackson had run away from Fremont; AlTfowell was on the eve of joining M’Clellan and M'Clellan was completing his deadly lines round the capital of the South, hy which the last stronghold of the rebels was to be blown into the air. Presently the colors, action, and entire tableaux of the phantasmagoria, undergo a total transformation. Charleston is reinforced, and defies her besiegers, who find it as much as they can do to keep their ground. Beauregard, although he is “ nowhere,'"’ has for the present rendered Charleston invulnerable. Jackson, instead of Hying before Fremont suddenly appears at Richmond. The expectation of a junction between M’Dowell and M’Clellan is clearly at. an end. All hope of anything like a Federal combination is over for the present. The next exploit of the Confederates at Richmond was a regular raid, by which they turned the flank of M'Clellan's army, and got nearly twenty miles in the rear, without being checked, or even discovered. 1 his daring and clever movement appears to have been executed by six regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, who succeeded in getting between the Chickahominy and Ramunkey rivers, on the hitter of which they burned two schooners laden with stores, ami then penetrated into a station on the Richmond and West-Point Railway, where they destroyed a waggon train consisting of lifty vehicles. The officers who hold high rank in M’Clellan’s army were said to he indignant at the negligence and want of foresight which permitted such an occurrence to take place ; hut worse disasters lay before them. Immediately after this surprise. M'Clellan advanced his pickets into the swamp, and great credit was given to him for elfecting so close an approach to the walls of the town. But his real situation, even at this moment, was betrayed hy the frequency and urgency of his appeals to "Washington for reinforcements. Now came another turn of the wheel —another surprise—and another victory for the Confederates, the most vast in its extent, and important in its consequences.

that has occurred since the beginning of hostilities. It appears that the Confederates, reinforced by “ Stonewall” Jackson, attacked the rmht wing of McClellan’s army, and after a sanguinary conflict drove them across the Chickahomiuy, and compelled them to fall back behind their left wing on the Janies river where they found shelter under cover of their gunboats. General M’Clellan has endeavored to make capital out of his calamities, by declaring that, even if he had not been forced to retire from his lines, he would have done so for Military reasons ; thus trying to convert an absolute defeat into a strategic movement. But that this view of the "situation is got up for the nonce is obvious from the iact that in his previous despatch, received only a few days before, he had taken credit for having advanced into the swamp within so short a distance of Bichmond, as to render the capture of the place a mere question of time. If it was good generalship to take up that position, it could not he also good generalship to abandon it in the face of the enemy. The fighting is said to have been carried on without cessation for seven days, during which time M'Ciellan must have been executing a Parthian manoeuvre, fur he covered; no less than seventeen miles on his retreat.. The beaten General at first announced that Itis forces were not worsted in any conflict, that they could not be driven from the field,' that the rebels, on the contrary, were repulsed with heavy slaughter, and that his own loss was only one gnu and one warnm. But there is now little doubt that he lost 2'j.000 men, and that the Confederates, whose loss could hardly have been less, captured IAOOO prisoners, the whole of M’Clellan's siege guns, and supplies sufficient to last tile whole army for three months. Nor has the humiliation of the army of the Potomac ended here. The Confederates were not content, with their seven days’ victories, hut have since captured a town near Nashville, and taken a Federal regiment. In other directions their arms have been equally successlul. At. Charleston they have won a battle, wnich cost heavy losses on both sides, and they have captured Baton Bouge, near New Orleans, and taken 1,500 prisoners. The setting in of the hot weather will, probably, tor a time suspend further operations, at least, on a great scale ; but it is evident that, up to the point at which they leave ofl, the Confederates have obtained considerable advantages. President Lincoln has visited M'Ciellan in his new quarters, and spoken cheerfully to the troops ; but reinlovceiueiits would be more to the purpose, and they come slowly, if, indeed, they come at ail. A large bounty.has been olfered to recruits; but there is little disposition to embrace it, and there are significant symptoms abroad of the war languishing for lack of muscles. In the face of (his serious difficulty at home Congress lias been taking a gigantic step towards widening the gulf between the Northern States and Furope. A new prohibitory tariff has been passed. By this wonderful code, the American market is absolutely closed upon the commerce of Europe, and especially upon the commerce of England. That seems to have been the express object with which it was compiled. “ Its effect will ho,” exclaims the leading New York paper, in a tone ei exultation, "to deprive Europe of the American market, a result more disastrous to England and France than a thousand blockades of cotton ports.” The marvellous thing is that these people do not see that in blunging about this result, which is to operate so disastrously on Europe, they are ruining themselves. Trade will be stopped to all intents and purposes, as between America and the rest, of the world. The west, will sever its connexion with a Government which legislates for its destruction, and the Great Bowers of Europe, as a matter of necessity, will recognize the independence of the South. Mho will suffer most By this?