2

"Forward to Richmond."

The repulse of McDowell serves the Chicago papers with a text to give the "little Tribune" of that city severe knocks for its clamor for hasty movements of the government troops on Virginia. The Post, under the heading above, thus:
While the memory of brave deeds and gallant hearts shall live, there will also live the recollection of the murderous cry of "Forward to Richmond." The soil of Virginia to-day is crimsoned with the best and bravest blood of the Union, spilled at the silly command. "Forward to Richmond." To-day the mangled corses of brave men are feeding the carrious crows from the hills of Virginia, because the crazy zealots of Chicago and New York demanded "Forward to Richmond."

We need not invite our readers to the bloody recital of the defeat at Manassas. They will have read it with horror and indignation long before they turn to this column, but we know that they will all agree with us, that the bloody defeat, the terrible route, the shameless flight, the massacre, the rebel victory, rests upon the stupid arrogance of the men who have "coerced" the army into the premature "Forward to Richmond."

The country will call in vain for the gallant hosts whose bodies strew the road from Manassas to Arlington, and will hold to a fearful responsibility the authority that yielded to the insulting demand of "Forward to Richmond." The fearful lesson of Sunday night will open the eyes, touch the hearts, and enlighten the judgments of the people to the fact that the Tribunes of New York and Chicago can be fools, and that the government that will allow itself to be terrified by fools into the commission of folly, is not a safe repository of national power. The responsibility of the march on Manassas is a fearful one, and let the people deal with those who have incurred it.

The "anaconda" has, at the bidding of the Tribunes, unfolded its length, and to-night five thousand gallant, heroic men are stretched in death along its path. "Forward to Richmond" shouted the insane Tribunes, and five thousand brave hearts perish in death.

The people owe it to themselves to rebuke these officious meddlers with the public interests. There has been quite enough of this arrogant dictation by these self constituted censors. Their teachings are written in blood, their monuments are the heaps of mangled dead, and their applause are the groans and curses of the wounded and dying. These men must be taught that they can no longer trifle with the lives and destinies of the American people. They have borne themselves like demons of iniquity, and not as patriotic men.

We arraign the Chicago Tribune as being an assessory to the murder of the many brave men whose bodies to-day are corrupting under the sun of Virginia. We arraign that paper before the country as aider and letter of the rebel triumph as Manassas. We arraign it as a cruel and shameless imposter, thrusting its harlequin foolery into matters filled with life and death to so many thousands of the brave men of the army. We arraign it as guilty in intent, if not in act of the bloody massacre of our countrymen, and to the thousands of widows bereft of their husbands; of parents robbed of their children, and of countless orphans robbed of their fathers, we point to the Chicago Tribune as one of the deluded fools who have wrought this deed of shame and horror.