Within a few weeks the extravagant hopes of the South were brought to the verge of extreme apprehension. The public mind was not to be soothed by the affected indifference of the press to calamities, the magnitude of which was too palpable, in the presence of actual invasion of nearly one half the Southern territory, and of imminent perils threatening the speedy culmination of adverse fortune to the Confederacy. Richmond, which, during the war, was at all times the reflex of the hopes and aspirations of the South, was the scene of gloom and despondency, in painful contrast with the ardent and gratulatory tone so lately prevalent. Popular disappointment rarely fails in its search for scapegoats upon which to visit responsibility for misfortunes. A noticeable result of the Confederate reverses in the beginning of 1862 was the speedy evolution of an organized hostility to the administration of President Davis. The season was eminently propitious for outward demonstrations of feeling, heretofore suppressed, in consequence of the brilliant success, until recently, attending the movement for Southern independence. The universal and characteristic disposition of the masses to receive, with favor, censure of their rulers, and to charge public calamities to official failure and maladministration, was an inviting inducement, in this period of public gloom, to the indulgence of partisan aspirations and personal spleen. To one familiar with the political history of the South during the decade previous to secession, there could be no difficulty in penetrating the various motives, instigating to union, for a common purpose, the heterogeneous elements of this opposition. Prominent among its leaders were men, the life-long opponents of the President, notorious for their want of adhesion to any principle or object for its own sake, and especially lukewarm, at all times, upon issues vitally affecting the safety of the South. These men could not forget, even when their allegiance had been avowed to the sacred cause of country and liberty, the rancor engendered in the old contests of party. Some, in addition to disappointed political ambition, arising from the failure of the President to tender them the foremost places in the Government, had personal resentments to gratify. Much the larger portion of the opposition, which continued, until the last moments of the Confederacy, to assail the Government, had its origin in these influences, and they speedily attracted all restless and impracticable characters--born Jacobins, malcontents by the decree of nature, and others of the class who are "never at home save in the attitude of contradiction."