rojected flank movement,
planned by General McCLELLAN and confided to a very limited number, had
been completely anticipated--indicating the basest treachery in a high
quarter. Very agreeable this to all interested in the war! And what does
it mean?

It means that Washington, and not Washington alone, but the entire
North, needs purging and purifying from most injurious influences. There
are traitors among us everywhere--where two or three are gathered
together will be one who sneers at Northern successes, smiles at
Southern victory, and is a traitor at heart--ready to be a spy if
needed.

No wonder that warm friends of the Union sometimes burst out into
indignant remonstrance and fierce complaint at such toleration!

Still, we must look at the matter philosophically; rather in sorrow than
in anger, for thus only can we correct the evil. There is a large number
of well-meaning people, especially in Washington, who have lived only
for and in a society in which Southern influence greatly predominated.
Familiar with the wildest excitement of politics, yet accustomed to
regard the leaders of all parties as equally unprincipled, and only
persuaded of the single social fact, that it is highly respectable to
own slaves, they can not see, even in the horrors of war, anything more
than the old excitement, in which shrewd and wily politicians continue
to pull wires. And in many other places besides Washington do the voices
of pleasant interests, or the echoes of pleasant memories, recall old
friendships or old ties. The head may be patriotic and union-loving and
at war with the South, but the heart is peaceful and clings to ancient
memories.

Now, if there is anything, dear reader, which is allied to real
goodness, it is this very same soft-heartedness which we find it so hard
to thoroughly condemn, even in such a case as that of the good Scotch
clergyman, who pitied and prayed for 'the poor auld deevil' himself. But
here it is that the 'gallant Southron' has the advantage over us. No
lingering love for Northern friends of olden time, no kindly regard for
by-gone intimacies, flashes up from the darkened abyss of 'Dixey.' And,
to be frank and fair, reader, does it not seem to you that while the
business in hand is literal _fighting_, not without much 'battle, murder
and sudden death,' it would be at least respectful to the awful destiny
of the hour to treat its ways seriously?

But let it foam and surge on, the time is comin