d whole States represented
in the Confederate Congress, not an acre north of Mason and Dixon's line
has suffered from the ravages of the Rebel armies. Was ever another
scorpion more completely surrounded and shut in by a cordon of fire?

This is surely something, but it is by no means all. Have _we_
accomplished nothing aggressively? We will call into court a witness
from the enemy's camp. Hear the recent testimony of a leading journal,
published in the Confederate capital:[A]--

[Footnote A: _Richmond Examiner_, January 20th, 1863.]

"It is not altogether an empty boast on the part of the Yankees, that
they hold all that they have ever held, and that another year or two of
such progress as they have already made will find them masters of the
Southern Confederacy. They who think independence is to be achieved by
brilliant but inconsequential victories would do well to look at the
magnitude of Yankee possessions in our country. Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri are claimed as constituent parts of the Confederation: they are
as much in the power of Lincoln as Maine and Minnesota. The pledge once
deemed foolish by the South, that he would 'hold, occupy, and possess'
all the forts belonging to the United States Government, has been
redeemed almost to the letter by Lincoln. Forts Pickens, [Sumter?] and
Morgan we still retain; but, with these exceptions, all the strongholds
on the seaboard, from Fortress Monroe to the Rio Grande, are in the
hands of the enemy. Very consoling and very easy to say that it was
impossible to prevent all this, and that the occupation of the outer
edge of the Republic amounts to nothing. Drowry's Bluff and Vicksburg
give the lie to the first assertion; and the onward movement of
Rosecrans towards Alabama, the presence of Grant in North Mississippi
and of Curtis in Middle Arkansas, to say nothing of Banks at New Orleans
and Baton Rouge, set at rest the silly dream that a thin strip of
sea-coast only is in possession of our foes. The truth is, the Yankees
are in great force in the very heart of the Confederacy; they swarm on
all our borders; they threaten every important city yet belonging to us;
and nearly two hundred thousand of them are within two days' march of
the Confederate capital. This is no fiction. It is a fact so positive
that no one can deny it."

But this reluctant recital by no means exhausts the record of our
successes. We have put into the field a volunteer force, fully armed and