practically ours; Alabama yields little to
our foe; Georgia is invaded, instead of remaining the basis of a grand
attack on Tennessee and Kentucky; the Carolinas, greatly favored by
geographical circumstances, are barely able to hold out against attacks
that are _not_ made in force, and portions of their territory are ours;
Virginia is exhausted, and there the enemy cannot long remain, even
should they meet with no reverses in the field; and, finally, as General
Grant's successes at Vicksburg halved the Confederacy, so have his
Chattanooga successes quartered it. The Rebels are no longer one people,
but are divided into a number of communities, which cannot act together,
even if we could suppose their populations to be animated by one spirit,
which certainly they are not. Of the inhabitants of the original
Confederacy probably two-fifths are no longer under the control of the
Richmond Government; and of the remainder a very large proportion are
said to be massed in Georgia, a State that has hitherto suffered little
from the war, but which now seems about to become the scene of vast and
important operations, which cannot be carried on without causing
sweeping devastation. The public journals state that there are two
million slaves in Georgia, most of whom have been taken or sent thither
by their owners, inhabitants of other States. This must tend greatly to
increase the difficulties of the enemy, whose stores of food and
clothing are not large in any of the Atlantic or Gulf States.

Much stress has been placed on "the starvation-theory," and it is
probable that there is much suffering in the Confederacy; but this does
not proceed so much from the positive absence of food as from other
causes. The first of these causes is undoubtedly the loss of all faith
in the Southern currency. That currency has not yet fallen so low as the
Continental currency fell, when it required a bushel of it to pay for a
peck of potatoes, but it is at a terrible discount, and the day is fast
coming when it will be regarded as of no more value than so many pieces
of brown paper; and its depreciation, and the prospect of its soon
becoming utterly worthless, are among the chief consequences of the
triumphs of our arms. Men see that there will be no power to make
payment, and they will not part with their property for rags so rotten.
They may wish success to the Confederate cause, but "they must live,"
and live they cannot on paper that is nothing bu