THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. VT. political ^flections. Here I pause. My object in this narrative has been to describe the character of an American army, to make my readers acquainted with the peculiarities of war in countries so different from our own, and with the varied difficulties against which a general has there to contend. I have related with equal candor my good and my bad impressions. The good which I have seen there has often moved me to admiration ; the evil has never Weakened the sentiments of deep sympathy which I feel for the American people. I have also tried to lay my finger upon the sad concatenation of blunders and accidents which has brought about the failure of the great attempt made to re-establish the Union. I shall not venture to question the future upon the consequences of this failure. They will come to light only too soon. It would be idle and ridiculous to predict to-day the final destiny of the combatants, to foretell which of the two will display the greatest tenacity, will prove itself, if I maybe pardoned the phrase, to have the better wind. One thing is certain; the failure of McClellan’s campaign against llichmond is destined to be followed by the effusion of seas of blood : it prolongs a strife, the fatal effects of which are not felt in America alone; it adjourns the most desirable solution of the crisis, the return of the States to the old Union. I say the old Union designedly, because I am one of those who think that if the North were beaten, decidedly beaten, that if the right of the minority to resist by arms the decisions of universal suffrage were victoriously established, the Union might still perhaps be reestablished. But it would then be reestatbshed by the conspicuous triumph of Slavery. 7
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