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Why Lee was Defeated.

The New York Times, everywhere recognized as the leading administration journal of New York city, and one of its principal organs in the United States, informs the country, on the morning of the day in which Gen. Meade achieved his great victory over Lee, how the affair came about. It says:

"Our correspondence from Gen. Meade's headquarters, yesterday, announced the fact that communication with Washington, by railroad and telegraph, had been cut off! Singular to say, the country did not regard the situation of General Meade at all critical on that account. On the contrary, there was a disposition to consider it one of the happy accidents of his life. If General Meade shall succeed in the great battle he has in hand, the present generation of patriots to their dying day will believe it was because he had his ‘communication with Washington cut off.’"

This is a very significant admission, and from a source which gives weight to the assertion. The country has for a long time been painfully aware that the interference of the president and his cabinet with the operations of the army, has been invariably productive of the most mischievous results, so much so that it has passed into a proverb that the army of the Potomac could achieve no success because of its proximity to the capital, and the control which lawyers and politicians exercised over its movements. The country may thank the ability and skill of Gen. Meade, and his corps and division commanders, and the courage and endurance of the army, for our recent signal victory, and not the schemers at Washington.

It now remains to be seen whether the effects of this victory are to be dissipated, as all previous ones have been, by the stupidity, or, what is worse, the political recklessness of those who now control the destinies of the nation. The people will demand that some tangible good shall ensue from our success, which shall be made conducive to the interests of the people and of the country, and not to forward the machinations of partisan senatorial and cabinet schemers. Our army has been successful in its military operations, let our statesmen secure the best possible political advantages from what it has accomplished. Let the victories at Gettysburg, Tullahoma and Vicksburg be steps toward the restoration of peace and the Union, and not distorted into rendering aid and strength to the pernicious designs of unscrupulous politicians.