Compelled though they may be, reluctantly to admit the superiority of
our resources and the immense advantages we have recently gained over
the conspirators, they yet adhere with singular tenacity to the belief
that all our victories will be barren, and that all our vast
acquisitions of Southern territory will not avail for the ultimate
restoration of the Union. Though the domain originally usurped by the
rebellion is already sundered by our possession of that great
continental highway, the Mississippi river, and though no shadow of hope
remains that the enemies of the Union will ever be able to recover it;
though the recent boundless theatre of hostilities is gradually
contracting, and the resources of the rebellion are rapidly melting
away, until there remains no longer any doubt of our ultimate and even
speedy success in crushing the wasted armies of the desperate foe; and
though the boundaries of the boasted confederacy are uncertain,
ever-shifting, and mystical, while whole populations of recovered
regions of country hail the advent of our conquering flag with streaming
eyes and shouts of joy; yet our jealous friends across the water, in the
very act of acknowledging all this, never fail to assert, with the
utmost vehemence, that in spite of all our military advantages, the
Union is still irrecoverably destroyed. There is something remarkable in
this persistent opinion, which, through all the changes of condition
exhibited by the hostile parties in our struggling country, continues to
possess the mind of British statesmen with unshaken firmness.
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