The following article is transcribed from the New York Times, dated September 19, 1862:

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The Maryland Battles

 

          There seems to have been a pause in the great battle that has been going on in Maryland during the week. Our information from the field is yet too meagre and unreliable to warrant any positive statements as to its specific character or results, though all we do know encourages us to hope for the best. There seems to be little doubt that the fighting on Tuesday and Wednesday was between the great mass of both armies, and that it was on both sides of the most desperate and determined character. The language of the few official dispatches that have reached us, as well as of the outside reports, warrants the belief that the world has seen very few more hotly-contested fields. On Wednesday there seems to have been a mutual suspension of hostilities, -- whether from exhaustion, or for the burial of the dead, or from both causes, we are unable to say. But we have no reports of any serious fighting yesterday. Gen. MCCLELLAN has had the supreme direction of the battle on our side; and he seems to have exercised his command with very great vigor, skill and success. When he fell back from before Richmond, and withdrew his troops from the Peninsula, we took occasion to say that he had not fulfilled the popular expectations, and had lost in very large degree the public confidence which he had before enjoyed; and the statement was literally and exactly true. But events, disastrous to the country, gave him almost instantly the opportunity to reinstate himself in public estimation, -- and we should be lacking in simple justice if we failed to say, that he has availed himself of that opportunity with a degree of decision and energy of which he had given no previous example. It is impossible as yet to say that he has conducted this campaign against the rebel army with faultless generalship, for that praise can never be awarded in advance of the result. But he has evidently attacked the enemy with vigor, and followed up the attack with energy and prompt celerity: -- and this is precisely what we were afraid he would not do, judging from the past. We hope that further and more complete reports of his conduct of these terrible battles will confirm the returning confidence and trust of the people, and give him the highest of all claims to the heartfelt gratitude of the nation. Gen. MCCLELLAN has had for his subordinates some of the noblest officers that ever honored any service -- men capable themselves of commanding armies and sure to win distinction for any General under whom they serve. BURNSIDE and HOOKER have added fresh laurels to those which clustered upon them so thickly before. We regret that the army will lose the services of the latter for a time, though no one can regret his absence from any field of danger and of duty more keenly than HOOKER himself. Of the other officers engaged we have heard but little, as yet, -- though in due time we doubt not we shall have satisfactory reports from their commands. Our forces are fighting this battle under great advantages. If the rebels should succeed, it can only be after such disabling losses as will render it impossible to follow up their victory, either against the 75,000 Pennsylvania militia, who await them on the North, or the strong reserves, steadily increased by the stream of fresh volunteers, that await them at Washington. If, on the other hand, they are defeated, they will scarcely be able to force their way through the strong corps that threatens their rear on the south side of the Potomac.

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