that ambition which upholds itself on the magnitude of the Union. This motive affords scope for declamation-orators will handle it with exciting effect-they are now denouncing as "miscreants and traitors" all who counsel reason. Beyond this, it will strongly affect the minds of many excellent Northern men who believe that the Union is a benefit, and are oppressed with a gloomy feeling, akin to that of the time of Lord North-that with the loss of the Southern States the sun of America sets for ever. But these will not be the actual combatants. The enthusiastic Unionist, the excited Abolitionist will be found in clubs and committee rooms, not on the field of battle. Enlistment soon subsides into an affair of bounty-of contracts to raise men at so much per head. Conscription has already been muttered. Those whom we have described will be most of them the editors, orators, and contractors of the North. In the actual warfare will be found Irishmen, Germans, small farmers, mechanics thrown out of work. There is nothing in a Constitution, or in abstract conceptions of union, to rouse feelings of self-devotion in these-the bone and sinew of the army. Already has been seen a form of patriotism that no other country has ever displayed -regiments walking away from the first field of battle to the sound of the enemy's cannon.

All this will be different on the other side. The Virginian will fight in defence of his own soil, as the Northerner would fight were New England

invaded. With him it will be no ideal abstraction -no theme of declamation-no question of public policy. It is the defence of his own land, and his own home. This all can understand-every eye can see it it speaks to every man-it rouses every heart. No matter to him about the rights or wrongs-the invader is on the soil. These men cannot turn away from the battle to seek their home; the battle is in their home.

The material obstacles which the South presents to an invading force, are matters on which a more positive judgment may be formed; they are those which apparently must decide the result. The force on the defensive has the advantage of choosing the position, on which to fall back, and accept an engagement. The invader comes on the strength of an assumed superiority, which he is bound to vindicate. To him retreat is fatal; and to pause, in the midst of a hostile nation, would be as one who hesitates on a sand-bank when the tide is rising around him. He has to answer every challenge, and to overthrow all who bar his way. It is true he may have the alternative of turning the positions that have been occupied; but even with experienced troops this operation is full of danger-with raw forces difficult in the extreme. Besides, in a country so vast, and of such variety, it will always be possible to select and occupy positions that cannot be turned, except under disadvantages so great, that the assailant is forced to attack in front as the lesser evil. If it

be considered that the garrison of a fortress is increased fivefold in strength by its position, it will be apparent how great the advantage of that choice of ground, which carries with it the power of entrenching and of crowning prominent points with guns of position. The Russian army at Borodino could not have withstood that of France for an hour on even' ground, but the choice of position enabled it to inflict most disastrous loss on its assailant.

The danger of panic, to which raw forces are exposed, will be greatly influenced by this choice of position. In regular armies the original courage of the man is increased as a soldier. He feels himself surrounded by the disciplined strength of the regiment, and mentally participates in the power of the whole. In its ranks he marches to an assault which he could not face as an individual. With undisciplined troops, on the contrary, each man has a consciousness that the rest are no better than himself. This instils into his mind a sense of weakness, instead of power, and he becomes less brave as a soldier than he was as a man. A mob will run away from an alarm that would disturb no person in it, if alone. Panic is in no degree proof of cowardice; it has happened to very brave troops. Some races are especially liable to it; the more excitable a people the greater the danger. It exists too in the ratio of intelligence, and an army composed of orators or professional and literary men would be more exposed to it

than a mass of Russian serfs; for as an emotion of the mind, a mental epidemic, the more mind there may be in any force, the greater its exposure to the danger. Some proof this how detestable a thing is war, since the nearer man approaches to the animal, the better he is fitted for it.

On

The results of panic are so fatal as to render it important to consider which of the combatants will be the more exposed to it. The usual causes are repulse in attack when exhausted by previous exertion, confusion in executing movements under fire, or terror of cavalry. To these the assailant is especially liable. The force on the defensive may be stationary, has few movements to effect, and is partly sheltered by its position. If driven out, perchance in disorder, the woods are near for shelter, every house being that of a friend. the other hand, the assailant has to execute movements, frequently to climb steep positions and encounter an enemy waiting to hurl him back. Again panic springs from a sense of insecurity, always nearer to the minds of those invading a hostile country, than to its defenders, who possess the confidence of a man in his own house. To the causes therefore of this fatal danger the invader is peculiarly exposed, whilst to him the consequences are also more disastrous. The defenders disperse to reunite afterwards, as we constantly experienced in the revolutionary war. With the assailant, fairly advanced into the country, the effect must be ruin to the campaign.

There remains a consideration which, if all those examined were omitted, appears decisive of the question. Space is an obstacle that numbers cannot overthrow, nor enthusiasm surmount, nor skill circumvent. Space was the true victor in the revolutionary war; it was the real conqueror in the invasion of Russia. There the cold aggravated the horrors of the retreat, and the picture of those sufferings is engraven so deeply in the mind as to leave the impression that frost and snow were the cause of ruin. But the army of Napoleon was wrecked before the frost appeared. But ninety thousand men set out to return from Moscow of the five hundred thousand that crossed the frontier. There was no frost until long after every desire had passed away, except that of escape. It was not the soldiers, nor generals, nor the cold of Russia, but the space which had caused this. The distance from Washington to Montgomery is a little beyond a thousand miles. What strength will be left in any man after marching a thousand miles, carrying an oppressive load, fed with indifferent food, sleeping by night on the ground, harassed at intervals with special exertions and fatigue? What proportion of any number will reach the end of such a march?

And a thousand men are no more capable of resisting these influences than one man. In this direction numbers have no accumulative power; whatever exhausts the strength of one of them, may prostrate all. That invasion of Russia is a