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ers and prominent men feel most acutely, and hence they will fight to the last, and keep the people up to that point as long as possible. How long that will be depends upon the will of the North, as no sane man doubts they have the power, and no loyal man questions the right. But the spirit, the enthusiasm, the enlistment of all the people with all their power and resources, are, with the South, as yet far beyond any thing I have seen North. I may here state that the Confederate authorities have complete control of the press, so that nothing is ever allowed to appear in print which can give information to the North or dishearten their own men. In this it appears to me that they have an unspeakable advantage over the North, with its numberless papers and hundreds of correspondents in the loyal armies. Under such a system it is an absolute impossibility to conceal the movements of the army. With what the correspondents tell and surmise, and what the Confederates find out through spies and informers of various kinds, they are able to see through many of the plans of the Union forces before they are put into execution. No more common remark did I hear than this, as officers were reading the Northern papers: "See what fools these Yankees are. General A---- has left B---- for C----. We will cut him off. Why the Northern generals or the Secretary of War tolerate this freedom of news we can not imagine." Every daily paper I have read since coming North has contained information, either by direct statement or implication, which the enemy can profit by. If we meant to play into the hands of the Rebels, we could hardly do it more successfully than our papers are doing it daily; for it must be remembered that they only need hints and scraps of information, which, added to the antecedent probabilities that our army is about to proceed to a certain point, will enable them to forecast with almost absolute certainty the movements of their enemies. Sure am I, that if a Southern paper would publish such information of their movements, as do the Northern of theirs, the editor's neck would not be safe an hour. Does any reader aver, "But we see information often quoted from the Southern papers of their movements." Never, until they are made. It is safe to conclude, if you see in a Southern paper any statement that the army is about to do a certain thing, that they will not do any such thing, but something very different. No, the Souther
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