Then the
superb victory obtained on Sunday of last week over PRICE in
Missouri, has taken a certain bogus tint, which causes many to
believe that there was, in fact, no victory and no battle. This
would not do. Something fresh must be had; something electrifying;
above all, something that would set the people to cheering and
firing off salutes about the very day of the election;--something,
too, that could not be plainly contradicted by the events till
after that critical day--then let the contradiction come and
welcome: your true Yankee will only laugh.
"From this necessity came the great 'reconnoissance in force' of
last Thursday on our lines before Richmond and Petersburg; a
'reconnoissance' in very heavy force indeed upon three points of
our front at once both north and south of the James river; so that
it may be very properly considered as three reconnoissances in
force; made with a view of feeling, as it were, LEE'S position; and
the object of the three reconnoissances having been fully
attained--that is, LEE having been felt--they retired. That is the
way in which the transactions of Thursday last are to appear in
STANTON'S bulletin, we may be all quite sure; and this
representation, together with the occupation of a part of the
Boydton plank-road (which road the newspapers can call for a few
days the Southside Road) will cause every city from Boston to
Milwaukee to fire off its inevitable hundred guns.
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