Meanwhile there had begun to be printed a series of letters from a Southern correspondent at Richmond who wrote in contempt of Grant's army.
"I am at a loss to convey to you the contemptuous tone in which the tried and war-worn soldiers of General Lee talk of the huddled rabble of black, white, and copper-coloured victims (there are Indians serving under the Stars and Stripes) who are at times goaded up to the Southern lines....
The truth is that for the first time in modern warfare we are contemplating an army which is at once republican and undisciplined[1212]." At the moment when such effusions could find a place in London's leading paper the facts of the situation were that the South was unable to prevent almost daily desertions and was wholly unable to spare soldiers to recover and punish the deserters.

But on this the _Times_ was either ignorant or wilfully silent.

It was indeed a general British sentiment during the summer of 1864, that the North was losing its power and determination in the war[1213], even though it was unquestioned that the earlier "enthusiasm for the slave-holders" had passed away[1214].

One element in the influence of the _Times_ was its _seeming_ impartiality accompanied by a pretentious assertion of superior information and wisdom that at times irritated its contemporaries, but was recognized as making this journal the most powerful agent in England.

Angry at a _Times_ editorial in February, 1863, in which Mason had been berated for a speech made at the Lord Mayor's banquet, _The Index_ declared: "Our contemporary is all things to all men.