of the rebellious States, proud of the favorable result; and
we weighed the means of the adversary with our own, in such scales as
our sanguine hopes and extravagant ideas served only too well to impose
upon us.

The ultimate basis of our calculation was undoubtedly sound and solid,
and the anticipated result must eventually come according to our
original views, though not within the period then too hastily assigned
for the duration of the bloody and disastrous contest. The stupendous
force of our Government is amply sufficient to crush the rebellion in
all its vast proportions, however slowly the great work may be carried
on, and however wastefully and unskilfully the national means may be
applied to that indispensable end. Though occasionally baffled in our
projects, we are still advancing on the whole; and there is evidently no
possible escape for the leaders of the rebellion. They must already
begin to entertain fearful apprehensions of their certain ultimate doom.
Our great fleet hovers upon their coast and penetrates their bays and
rivers, cutting off most of their commerce with the outside world, and
isolating them within the narrow limits of the territory actually
occupied by them; while our immense armies are pressing them at all
important points, with a deliberation and steadiness which evidently
spring from the consciousness of superior strength and the certainty of
ultimate triumph. The Mississippi river is virtually open to our
commerce, or at least to the complete occupation of our gunboats and
armies, and the suffering enemy is thus cut off from his communication
with Texas, and from the only available resources on which he can
securely rely to sustain him much longer in his wicked and desperate
game of treason. His condition is in the last degree perilous; he seems
to be in the very agony of dissolution, or at least in that stage which
immediately precedes it. His extremities are already cold with the chill
of mortal congestion; but the fever rages all the more fiercely about
the vital parts, where the maddened energies of the whole system are
concentrated in the last desperate struggle for life. Possibly there may
be a little reaction here and there, or even a violent convulsive effort
of tremendous energy; an incursion may be made into Kentucky, or some
temporary success achieved in other quarters; but the revival will be
deceptive and evanescent, and the fitful return of life to the limbs
will only se