Philadelphia papers of the 7th instant have been received. The news is not important. The following are Stanton's "official dispatches:" Washington, June 6, 7 P. M.--To Major Gen. Dix: We have dispatches from Gen. Grant's headquarters down to six o'clock last evening, which state that there had been no fighting during the day. The enemy made an attack on Saturday night upon Hancock, Wright, and Smith, but were everywhere repulsed. Hancock's line are within forty yards of the rebel works. The rebels were very busy on Saturday constructing entrenchments on the west side of the Chickahominy, at Bottom's Bridge, and towards evening threw a party across to the east side. A dispatch from Gen. Sherman, dated yesterday afternoon, June 5th, at 3:20 at Altoona Creek, states that the enemy discovered us moving around his right flank, abandoned his position, and marched off. McPherson is moving to-day for Ackworth. Thomas is on the direct Marietta road and Schofield on his right. It has been raining hard for three days, and the roads are heavy. An examination of the enemy's abandoned works here shows an immense line, which I have turned with less loss to ourselves than we have inflicted upon him. The army supplies of forage and provisions are ample.
[another Dispatch]
"everything going on well" with Grant — Sherman Progressing.
Dispatches have been received from Gen. Grant's headquarters to day, but they report only certain changes in the positions of corps and contemplated operations.
They state that "everything is going on well."
The Chief Quartermaster of the army reports a personal inspection of the depot at White House, and that it is in a most officiant state, all needful supplies on hand and wagons to transport them easily to the army.
The wounded are being brought in and transports are not delayed moment.
A dispatch from Gen. Sherman, dated at 12 noon, to day, at Ackworth, Ga., says: "I am now on the railroad at Ackworth Station, and have full possession forward to within one mile of Marietta.--All well.
No other military intelligence to-day.
A correspondent of the Inquirer, writing from near Cold Harbor, June 3d, P. M., says that "four thousand men will not cover the casualties of that day's fighting. An average advance of our lines somewhat less than half mile, and the capture of about four hundred prisoners, form the result of the day's operations." Among the partial list of casualties in two divisions of the Yankees in Friday's fight we find the names of Gen. Tylor, commanding the Irish Legion, and seven Colonels wounded, besides many officers of lower grades. Gen. T. inst. a foot. The 18th corps also lost heavily.
The Cleveland Ticket — Fremont's acceptance.
Fremont's letter accepting the nomination of the Cleveland Convention for the next Presidency of the United States, declares that Lincoln's administration is a "military dictatorship without its unity of action and vigor of execution.-- He says: ‘ "If the Convention at Baltimore will nominate any man whose past life justifies a well grounded confidence in his fidelity to our cardinal principles, there is no reason why there should be any division among the really patriotic men of the country. My own decided preferance is to aid in this way, (in supporting the Baltimore nominee,) and not to be myself a candidate.--But if Mr. Lincoln should be re-nominated, I believe it would be fatal to the country to endorse a policy and renew a power which have cost us the lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the country on the road to bankruptcy. There will remain no alternative but to organize against him every element of conscientious opposition, with the view to prevent the misfortune of his re-election. ’ The Herald says: The bold, emphatic, consistent and strong position assumed by Fremont and his independent radicals, of all creeds and all nations, against Lincoln, secures the detest of Lincoln in June or in November--at Baltimore or before the grand jury of the people.Returning Sanity.
Wilkes's (N. Y.) Spirit of the Times, edited by a man who has heretofore been a strong advocate of the war, doesn't seem to be very much elated by the prospects of the war: Never before have we felt a depression equal to that which assails us at this moment. Three years have now elapsed since the commencement of the war. A debt of sixteen hundred millions stares us in the face; and nearly half a million of our soldiers have been utterly used up. The elastic hope which buoyed the earlier stages of the struggle has largely faded out, while, so far as the Confederates are concerned, they are better off to-day to sustain three years more contest than at any previous period of the war. The manufactories they at first required are now constructed; agriculture and the science of subsistence have taken settled shape; and all the sufferings and scarifies which are necessary to season a people to exploit, have been endured. Moreover, they feel that the period of probation which foreign Powers limit for struggling populations to earn the stamp of nationality is very nearly up. Is it not, therefore, painful — nay, alarming — that, at such a crisis, mediocrity and doubtful purpose should wield the entire away? Yet, such is the case: and as we dwell upon it we are almost led to believe that God not only is not with us, but against us. He has confounded our judgments, divided our councils, and delivered us into the hands of the feeble the faint- hearted, and the blind. And why should. He be with us, base, grovelling, and the corrupted as we are? We are not with Him! We are a godless, conscienceless, religionless people. There is no honor, no virtue, no devotion, except among the masses, while ninety per cent of all who range above thousand-dollar incomes are lynx eyed sharpers, who are watching every neighbor with suspicion, and who subordinate every sentiment to self Debauched by an extravagant prosperity, and spared mercifully from all sacrifices, we have ungratefully forgotten a due reliance upon Heaven, and the result is, that, except in the case of the simple, virtuous laboring people, we have practically become a community of atheists.--There is no conscience attached to the intelligence and wealth of the community; and laymen as we are, and of the world, we say unto you, fellow countrymen, that there can be no lasting government without public virtue, no lasting government without public virtue, no enduring nationality without a universal sense of God. Handed as our country has been in the field, and stupefied as it is by the tricksters of the Cabinet, it would seem that we are only to arrive at the stage when we may be permitted to rebuild, by sufferings and sacrifices, and perhaps through a preliminary chaos which it is dreadful to anticipate.A Northern description of the situation.
The Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial gets off the following happy hit at street-corner campaigners. We will only remark that Washington can hardly be ahead of Nashville in the conveniences of mud or dust in which to draw diagrams, and we have no reason to think that our population are at all interior in the endowment of intuitive strategy: Washington, May 2, 1864.
Everybody in Washington seems to be afflicted with "situation on the brain — which, however, is but a patriotic anxiety for the success of the Union army, and a desire to demonstrate how easily it can be brought about, and how certain it is to be achieved.
In front of every hotel, and at every street corner, you will see little groups of honorable gentlemen, and gentlemen who are not as honorable as they might be, perhaps, discussing the relative positions of Lee and Grant with great vehemence, and demonstrating how Grant will flank Lee and get to Richmond, or how Lee will flank Grant and try to get to Washington — every proposition happily illustrated by an engraving with the point of a walking stick in the dust of the side walk.
[Washington is a good place for such illustrations.
You can always sketch out a map of the sidewalk.] The "artist" makes a straight line--"That's Grant's army."
"Yes, very well," says the bystander.
Another straight line--"That's Lee."
"Of course, that's plain enough"
"Well, here's Richmond"--and the artist perforates a little mud heap in the rear of both lines.
The problem is now pretty nearly solved.
With the whole sidewalk to operate on, it would be very strange if Grant couldn't swing his line around into the rear of Lee's and march into the rebel capital.
In the ardor of their patriotism the citizen campaigners usually neglect to give Lee a chance to fortify — or even to fail back before the invincible columns of the Union leaders. --Here's Grant; here's Lee, and here's Richmond"--all done in two strokes and a dot of the walking stick.
Carlyle's -- in a nutshell" is nowhere, compared with this laconic demonstration of the great problem of Grant as Lee. Walking stick strategy is the thing after all. It will break the back bone of the rebellion quicker than anything I know of.
