Valley Spirit

It is so common for newspaper editors, every few months, to predict the winding up of the rebellion within a few weeks, that the public have begun to place very little reliance on such prophecies; and yet, despite this popular impression, we will make bold to say we think we see some bright spots on the political horizon--some indications which point, if not to the speedy suppression of the rebellion, at least to a curtailment of its extent, its influence, and its prestige with foreign powers--and others, too, which show that the old Government, although in many respects mismanaged and its vast energies shamefully misdirected, still commands confidence at home and respect and sympathy abroad, and strikes terror, as with a deadly blow, into the hearts of its enemies. Let us see what these indications are.

Gold is now selling in Richmond at four dollars premium; that is, Confederate Scrip has so far depreciated as to require five dollars of it to purchase one dollar in gold. What is the cause of this depreciation? The Richmond papers attribute it to the demand for coin by the blockade runners, for the purposes of trade. But this demand must be comparatively small and unable to produce such a general and extensive depreciation. The true explanation must be found in the fact that the people of the South are beginning to distrust their own cause, and, in the desire to save something out of the general wreck, are investing in European securities, or hoarding gold in the hope of "better days a-coming." The tone of their own papers seems to confirm this view. This is one of the most cheering signs of the times. If gold were selling at four hundred per cent premium here, we should all agree that we were "going to the dogs," as fast as our legs could carry us. But look at the contrast: Gold is only thirty-seven or forty per cent premium here; our securities have a ready and available market, while the English capitalists come forward and propose to lend us a hundred millions in gold, at par, or at the regular rates of exchange. Why this equally sudden appreciation of Northern securities? It finds an easy explanation in the recent uprising of the conservative element over the whole country, and its declaration that the war must be brought back to its legitimate purpose, and must be prosecuted with vigor, for it "has never agreed, does not now agree, and has no intention of agreeing in future to a dissolution of the Union." From this stand point we can not fail to see, in the financial condition and prospects of the two sections, a ray of hope for the future.

The rebels seem to be impressed with the idea that this will be a year of defeat to their arms, and that they will be compelled to give up many of their strongholds. Their tone sounds not near so defiant as it did last year. The Richmond Examiner says: "Active operations of the chief Federal army, that under Hooker, are now commenced, and either a decisive battle or the retreat of the army commanded by Lee must be the speedy consequence." And again:

"If the Confederate General's force is not sufficiently numerous to prevent the completion of the manoeuvre, it is supposed that no course remains but to fall back on some point near Richmond and give the enemy battle at a greater distance from his base. This is the worst that is even possible, and it would be no disaster even if it should occur. Some disaster, some defeat, in the enormously extended campaign now opening, will, of course, fall to our lot."

There seems, too, to be stronger hope than ever of being able to starve the rebels out. Scarcely a rebel newspaper finds its way North that does not complain of the great scarcity of food. The Governors of all the States have recommended the planting of wheat and corn instead of to bacon and cotton, and the Governor of Georgia has called an extra session of the Legislature, in view of "the necessity of further legislation, at an early day, to secure the use of all our productive labor in the cultivation of all our lands in grain and other articles necessary to sustain life. This scarcity of provisions is sorely felt in their army. The Richmond Enquirer says:

"From every quarter where our armies are massed--from Vicksburg, Tallahoma, Charleston and Fredericksburg--we have the most gratifying accounts of the conditions of our troops and their certain ability to cope with any force that the enemy may hurl against them. The only point upon which there is room for apprehension is that our forces may be forced by want of food for men and horses to relinquish the strongholds from which the enemy could never dislodge them, and that this is a grave and pressing danger we have many reasons for believing.

It is a fact as well known to the enemy as to ourselves that all the country in the vicinity of our armies has long been stripped of its provisions and forage, and that these armies depend for their existence and maintenance of their positions upon the railroads."

And, unfortunately for them, their railroads are all giving out, with little or no prospect of their being reconstructed. The Enquirer further says:

"The railroads of this State are on the point of giving out. They have decreased their speed to ten miles an hour as a maximum rate, and are carrying twenty-five to fifty per cent less tonnage than formerly. This change in their rate of speed and quantity of freight has been made through necessity. The woodwork of the roads has rotted, and the machinery has worn out, and owing to the stringent enforcement of the conscription law as to railroad employees, the companies have not been able, with all their efforts, to supply either the one or the other. We are not informed of the actual condition of the railroads in the more Southern States, but conceive that they are little better off than our own. The Government should not be content even to keep the railroads in the condition in which the war found them; it should endeavor, and the effort would be successful, to improve upon that condition. The better the roads, the better supplied would our armies be, and consequently the more certain is the resistance to the extraordinary efforts for our subjugation which the enemy proposes to make during the coming campaign."

It seems as if these facts were making a deep impression upon the rebel leaders. Late private advices from Richmond bring reliable information that they are preparing to abandon their capital to its fate--at least they are removing their public workshops, manufactories and machinery to some point further into the interior. At last they are beginning to feel the coils of the anaconda tighten around them. In the Gulf, at Charleston, at Savannah, in North Carolina along the Blackwater, the Rappahannock and the Shenandoah, at Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Murfreesboro, and along the line in Kentucky, our forces are prepared for a general advance. Soon we will "hear the thunder all around the sky." It is possible and perhaps probable that in the varied fortunes of war we may meet with some repulses, but victory must perch upon the banners of some of our armies; and the Confederate government, as it is at present situated, with a bankrupt treasury, with a starving population, with scarcely any means of rapid transportation, and with no hope left of foreign armed intervention, can not withstand a defeat. Let us take courage, then. With a vigorous, concerted campaign, the mismanagement of the last two years may yet be retrieved. We may yet snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The armed power of the rebellion may be broken, and the conservative sentiment of the country, discarding alike the radicalism of the Secessionists and the Abolitionists, may yet save the country.

Messrs. Editors:--I send you full returns of the election held here on the 20th inst.

Many persons are at a loss to account for this result, while many more seem to understand it perfectly. The truth is, the people have lost all confidence in the party now in power; they want a change, a change from the most insignificant township officer to the President of the United States, and especially so, in the latter.

The people have become disgusted with the loud boastings of the abolitionists of love for the Union, while, at the same time, they manifest an utter disregard for all the rights and liberties of the people, guaranteed to them by the Constitution, the very bond of our Union.

Then, again, the people still entertain the belief that the white man is better than a nigger, and that if Father Abraham, under the pretext of prosecuting the war for the restoration of the Union, is willing to sacrifice the lives of white men to liberate slaves, he would as well not look to Washington Township to furnish him soldiers, but depend alone upon Greeley's nine hundred thousand to see him through. It is all folly for Mr. Lincoln, under any pretext, whatever, to attempt to convert the great Democratic party into an Abolition party. The thing can't be done and the sooner Mr. Lincoln learns this fact, the better for all parties concerned.

WAYNESBORO.