SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1864.

SHERMAN'S MARCH.

          THE campaign of General SHERMAN is striking and daring, but not more so than his advance from Chattanooga, of which it is a continuation. At Atlanta, with a slender line of railroad nearly two hundred miles long, exposed to the forays of the rebel cavalry, his position was uncertain. The advantages were not balanced by the risks. He has therefore made it useless for either party, and destroying as he goes, he carries a line of fire straight across the surface of the rebel section, cutting a terrible swath to the sea.

General SHERMAN does not play at war. " War is cruelty," he says, " and you can not refine it," and he believes that they who have brought war upon the country will justly feel its sharpest edge. Yet he only is wise who sees in SHERMAN'S flashing sword the true olive branch. When the deluded Southern people feel that the Government is strong enough to pierce their section where it will ; that the national armies can march and countermarch at their pleasure ; that the shrewdest plans of their own Generals are outwitted and baffled ; and those Generals perceive that they have lost their supreme military advantage of interior lines, a moral victory is won.

          It may be true, as the rebels say, that the march of SHERMAN'S army is merely like the flight of an arrow which can not wound the air through which it passes. The rebel army may close in behind him. The territory he crosses may still own the rebel sway ; and he may hold only the ground upon which he actually stands. But the first victory of such a campaign is not visible. Not a rebel soldier may fall before him, but the hearts of a host faint within them. Not a field may be permanently held by him, but the rebel owner knows that the tenure of his own possession is loosened. The arrow may not wound the air, but when you have learned that the air which you deemed impervious has been pierced by an arrow, you will hear a hurtling all the time,

SHERMAN'S campaign is one of great difficulties and dangers. The conviction of the rebels that, if they could embarrass or defeat him, their prestige would be regained, and their terrible disasters of the last year condoned, will incite them to the utmost effort of desperation to destroy him. It is the duty of all sensible Union men not to exult, not to be transported wits excessive expectation, but to watch and hope and pray. All the circumstances—the absence of noon's army, the blithe courage of SHERMAN'S men, his own indomitable energy and great genius—favor our noble General. We may justly believe that he will keep his Christmas by the sea. But we ought to guard against the possible consequence of undue elation. If, forgetting the chances of war, we insist that there is nothing but absolute success to be expected at every step of SHERMAN'S movement, we may find ourselves paying the penalty of our own folly in a depressing and overpowering reaction of feeling.

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GENERAL SHERMAN'S CAMPAIGN.

          UNTIL Sherman has reached the sea we may expect no definite information concerning his progress. The rebel journals will not afford "aid and comfort to the enemy"by heralding his successes, but so long as they keep silence we may be assured that he has met with no reverse, This much appears to be certain: that he started on November 14 in two columns on the line of the two principal rail roads that run eastward across the State from Atlanta, and that his advanced cavalry has taken Milledgeville, which lies between the two railroads above mentioned. These two railroads are the Georgia Railroad, which runs almost directly east from Atlanta to Augusta, on the Savannah River, and the Macon and Western Railroad, which at starting runs nearly south from Atlanta to Barnesville, and then takes an eastward course through Macon to Savannah. From Atlanta to Macon is 104 miles; from Macon to Savannah 180 miles. Sherman's orders for the march were issued November 9. The right wing, consisting of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, was to be commanded by General Howard, and the left, consisting of the Fourteenth and Twentieth, by General Slocum.

          Each regiment to have one wagon and one ambulance, and each brigade a due proportion of ammunition and provision wagons and ambulances. The army to forage liberally off the country during the march, each brigade having its foraging company and arranging for at least ten days' provision ahead and three days' forage. No destruction of property to be permitted when the army is unmolested, but in districts which offer resistance a devastation to be made more or less relentless, according to the measure of hostility. Able bodied negroes may he taken, unless there should be a scarcity of supplies. It is probable that to General Sherman's cavalry will be committed the necessary destruction of property, while the infantry will move steadily onward to the new base of operations.

          On the 18th General Beauregard issued a manifesto to the citizens of Georgia, calling upon them to rally around Governor Brown, to obstruct the roads in Sherman's front, flank, and rear, and promising to be with them soon. The latter promise he appears, from the late Macon papers, to have redeemed, leaving Hood to fight Thomas in Central Tennessee.

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