The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-06 00:00:00

NEW YORK, 113. 22.

Sherman has pushed rapidly north, has captured
Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, without
striking a blow, thus compelling the evacuation of
Charleston, and appears now to be moving, not
north-east, as the Southern press seems to have
expected, but due north, towards Charlotte, to
which Beauregard seems to have retired. If he had
moved in the direction of Wilmington the garrison
of Charleston could have effected a junction with
Beauregard by way of Columbia, but from present
indications it seems fair to conclude that Sherman
has determined to prevent this by following the
latter up on a straight line, thus throwing
Hardee off, to scramble towards Richmond as
best be can. The evacuation of Wilmington
will no doubt follow that of Charleston, and
the garrison will endeavour also to effect
a junction with Beauregard, and, failing this, to
reach Richmond and reinforce Lee. The seacoast'
being given up, and Sherman in possession of all
thevillroads leading south, and moving rapidly up
to close quarters, both his column and that of
Schofield converging on Richmond, the great
question is what will Lee do. One opinion is that
he will move out, and having gathered up Beaure-
gard and Brag, thus increasing his army by say
40,000 men, endeavour to strike Sherman and

Schofield separately, or at all events Sherman, and
then, if he suoceeds in disposing of them, return on
Grant. 01 coarse this theory is based on the sup-
position that by evacuating Petersburg his line
round Richmond would be sufficiently contracted
to enable him to hold it with a amall fore..--
at least for • few weeks—while the
greater portion of the army was operating in the
field, and that the condition of the roads, and his
command of the Danville railway, would enable
him to elude Grant and get the start of him by at
least a day or two. Should he fail, and be repulsed
by Sharman, he will then do what be will be com-
pelled to do in any event, fall back on Lynchburg.
Another opinion is--and this, I think, is the more
general one—that he will, as Sherman approaches,
simply evacuate Richmond, and retire to Lynch-
burg, where he will fortify himself with his batik to
the mountains, and make the last great effort of the
Confederacy, or else fall back down the valley,
seizing Knoxville on the way, and, if possible, also
Chattanooga, and reaching Georgia once more, and
there hold out as lON/ as he can. _ _

The first plan is the more striking and brilliant
one, but decidedly the more desperate. There
would be first of all the danger of withdrawing
from under the nose of an enemy so wary and
watchful as Grant doubly is, of course, just now ;
and then there would be the risk of defeat by
Sherman, a formidable one when it is remembered
that his army is the last hope of the Confederacy.
If it were lost, all would be lost. The safer coarse
seems decidedly to be the evacuation of Richmond
and the retreat on Lynchburg, but it is not likely
now that it can be accomplished without fighting.
There is a general expectation here of a great battle
within ait next two or three weeks that will decide
everytfilfg ; but this, of course, proves nothing.
Still it is one of the probabilities, and I should not
be surprised to bear of it at any moment, although
it must not be forgotten that Lee has not dis-
tinguished himself by this kind of strategy sinw
Jackson's death. He has failed utterly mace then
whenever he has taken the offensive. The great blows
of his campaigns were all struck by his lieutenant.
His campaign in Pennsylvania in 1863 was an utter
failure, and his distinction since then has all been
achieved in tenaciously bolding his own, and he
has since Gettysburg displayed the moat extraor-
dinary want of enterprise, as during last summer's
campaign in Virginia, when he allowed Grant to
perform, week after week, flank movements of the
greatest hardihood and complexity with perfect
impunity.
What is perhaps most remarkable about this
campaign of Sherman's, is the apathy ,of the popu-
lation. In South Carolina, as well as in Georgia,
he seems to meet with absolutely no resistance or
even annoyance from the inhabitants, a result or
posed to all that we were led to expect by the lan-
guage of the Southern press, as well as by the pluck
andteuacity of the Southern armies, that it is impos-
sible to avoid seeing in it strong confirmation of the
theory that the war feeling is now confined to the
official classes and the army. Everybody expected,
and all Southerners predicted confidently, that his
march through Georgia would be met by a general
rising, and that every mile of his march would be
disputed by a desperate and enraged population.
I The magniloquent proclamations addressed to them
by the officials at Richmond, urging them to burn
their houses, and lay waste their fields, and kill
I their stock, and block up the roads, allowed what was
expected from them. When they failed to comply,
their apathy was ascribed by the newspapers to the
I evil teachings of Governor Brown, and by the
South Carolinians to the inherent meanness of
Georgian nature. The Georgians have long our-
' passed all the other slave States, probably
owing to their Scotch descent, in industrial
i and commercial enterprise and love of trade,
I and have consequently earned from the South Caro-
Lukas, to whom these qualities are abhorrent, the
appellation of " Georgia Yankees." So when the
Georgians failed to make Sherman's march a " Mos-

cow retreat," as Davis promised they would, it
was confidently attributed by their neighbours to
the debauching influence of love of money. If
Sherman ever ventured into South Carolina, how-
ever, the world was to see what "popular resist-
ance" really was. Re was to find nothing but a
waste in his front and on his flank, and an enemy
behind every tree. As South Carolina bad led the
way in seceding, she was also to set an example of
resistance to invasion which would put the other
States to shame. She has always been loudest
in talking against the Union, abusing the
North, lauding slavery. The States Rights doctrine
was first preached there by John C. Calhoun ;
and those peculiar views of society and govern-
ment, which declare slavery to be the proper con-
dition of the working classes of colour, and the
only safe basis for the social organisation in every
country, had their origin in Charleston, and were
propagated over the South by South Carolinian
orators and journalists. The whites, too, were in
this State in a minority, and the number of large
plantations was unusually great, so that the slave
cede was not only more stringent, but was enforced
with a rigour unknown elsewhere. Nowhere, too,
was the condition of the " poor whites" so degraded,
and the number of free negroes so small. As might
be expected, too, both before and since the war, the
' fiercest talking has been done by South Caro-

liniana, although their military history has been
anything but creditable. In the Revolution they
were singular in their feebleness and pusillanimity,
surrendered Charleston to the British without a
struggle, and it was left to a Massachusetts general,
Greene, to drive Cornwallis out of the State.
The prominence of the part it had taken in the
slavery agitation, however, as well as the incessant
boasting of the people, led the public to expect
great things of them in the war. And it is but just
to them to say that so far as I have ever been able
to learn, the South Carolinian troops have fought
well, and desertion to the enemy amongst them
has, I believe, been unknown. Bet in resisting
Sherman's invasion they have shown no more
spirit, if so much, as the Georgians. His march
has been easy and uninterrupted except by the
natural difficulties of the country, which at the out-
set were such as few armies ever bad so contend
against, corduroy roads having to be constructed
through many miles of swamp, by fatigue parties,
who had to work in water up to their hips. As far
as we can learn, he suffered little if anything from
" bushwhacked" or guerillas, and has had, as the
Richmond popes, emelme, so raidiaMtp
the country altogether, at is great part As is
Georgia.
The news of the fall of Charleston has caused a
good deal of rejoicing here, and the public buildiap
as well as a great many private houses were yester-
day dressed with flags in honour°, she event. Bat
the excitement about it is small compared to what
it would have been two years ago, or even last sum-
mer. The fall of Atlanta, Sherman's march through
Georgia, and the fall of Savannah and of Columbia,
and Hood's defeat, have blunted the edge of people's
appetite, and produced a general impression that we
are to witness the collapse of the rebellion within a
few months at most. It is true this impression has
been long current, but not generally. There has
always been a large body of persons amongst even
the more ardent supporters of the war who by no
means shared the sanguine anticipations of Mr.
Seward and the press, and who felt satisfied that
the end of the struggle was too remote to make an
attempt to fix it anything but folly. I knew a good
many of these croakers ; but I find none of them
croaking now ; and I find that even persons of
strong Secessionist sympathies acknowledge that it
is all over with the Confederacy, but still believe
that the Southern leaders and the army will die hard,
and that we may still look for a good deal of fight-
ing—an opinion which I share myself.
There seems to be no doubt that the Virginians
at least are determined to arm their negroes, and
are doing so, but the cotton States, as far as we can
judge, are opposed to it, and will not move. I see
no reason to recede from the opinion I have already

expressed, that no black force of sufficient strength
to affect the fortunes of the war can be raised in the
present state of the Southern communications. It
is evident that the Confederacy is resolving itself
into its elements.

FRANCE.

111011 E OM OW

PARIS. SATURDAY EVIIRDO.
The Cwarrier du Dimanche contains the following
article on the History of Ciesar :
We are told that we may criticise this work as freely as
if if were *DIA by the most obscure earns, and esveral
journal@ ostentatiously affirm that they should have done so
without pensionless. We are more modest, and do not
scruple to coulees that we find it more difficult than others
seem to think to distinguish the author from the bead of
the State. When in 1823 Louis XVUL published the
narrative of his journey to Coblects and Ghent, liberty of
the press existed in France, and the journals had DO
werninp,sospensions, or administrative suppressions to fear.
Nevertheless • senile of propriety prevented them from
giving expresaion to their feeling that the royal work was
very much to be regretted. If, therefore, the work were
merely historical we might, perhaps, think it best to be
silent. We might also my nothing if the author bad on-
' tented himself with reproducing the well•knows theory of
all publicists of the empire touching the downfall of the
ROM= republic, It is, we rather think, the first time that
Brutus has been made responsible for the crimes of Nero
and Caligula. But it is nothing new to represent the
Roman republic as fatally condemned to perish, and the
Come se providential saviours of humanity. However false
this theory appears to us, we will not stop to refute it now.
But in the Preface to the "Life of Cruz" there in some-
thing more than an historical opinion ; there is a manifest
attempt to compere Francs—such as oar revolutions have
made her—to the Boman republic in its decline. This Pre-
face sunrises the form of • political programme, and it is
in that character that we protest against it. as ocetaiaing
ideas contrary to all au:ea:Matinee. Cesar, Charlemagne,
Napoleon 1., are held up as instruments of Providesee,
initiators of progress, and benefactors of humanity.
The Courtier du Dimanche here quotes the pas-
sage from the Preface representing the great men
in question as "beacons dispelling darkness and
illumining the future," and oppoees to it the fol-
lowing quotation from M. Guizot's History of Civi-
lization m France :

The great man. in the first stage of his weer, ends,-
titan& better than anyone Glee the necessities of his time—
the real actual waste of contemporary society in order to
live sad develop itself in • regular way. Be knows better
than say other how to monopolise all the social forces and
converge them towards that end. Hews his powerend glory.
But later, there comes a time wits° he seeks to employ the
public force for the furtherance of his own ideas and de-
sire@ ;be alone is all wise and all powerful. After • while
the public gets uneasy; then tired for • while it follows the
great man sullenly end against the grain ; then it vies eat
sad resists ; sod at last it falls of from the great man, who
is left alone, and falls ; sod thee everything that he alma
Imagined and willed, all the persosal sad arbitrary part of
his write, fells with him.
The Courrier du Liqueur-he asks whether this elo-
quent passage does not apply to Napoleon L and
Charlemagne I It then refers to the well-known
argument that a hero, even if admitted to be per-
fect, is not immortal, and therefore a people should
not stake its destinies upon his sole will. Tiberius
succeeds to Augustus, Louis le Debonnaire to
Charlemagne, and Louis XV. to Louis XIV.
" Happy the nation that can do without great
men, or at least without that haughty class of great
men whose greatness is inconsistent with liberty."
The article concledes in those terms :
If we rightly vedeeta•d the cosoleddag lines of the
Profess, the °stratum of Napalms in nit i mersesated sa
modemaieg Prams just as she murder of Comer madman&
Bosse to madam perhaps for s bug dim, all the drones el
obsolete power. The wither of the "Life of Came mobs
eery differently WIWI he prim Meed the armies el the *ai-
des, and whoa oely the Mbar day he booed Wens the
Cliamben soak a astifestery *Sue of the stale el AWNS
and Europe. For mar put, we will yet believe is passe sad
liberty, men thank Napoleon L did die at St. HaIIIMS
sad with ell dm anbmimien to the kik of history, we ma-
Sara to hem that the mieresioni of the modern Quer will
set, like the mutte of the Renee Omar, aseemeidly ashe
over his ocientry to Herres sad Osligntre. _ _

The opposition amendment; to the address will,
among other things, demand a reduction of the
oontingent of 100,000 recruits. One amendment
will allude to Mexico, and another to the United
States, with especial reference to the recent anti-
slavery declarations of the government of Washing-
ton. A more complete repeal of the provisions ot
the Law of Public Safety than the one aheady pro-

mined willbe asked for. The amendment of former
years, asking that Paris and Lyons may have elec-
tive municipal councils, like the rest of &sweet!!
certainly be revived. The evacuation of
being now decided upon in principle, the amend-
manta will only express • hope that no time may be
lost. It seems to be quite settled that M. Thiele
will, independently of the other members for Paris,
make • speech on the Convention, and that he will
censure it, but entirely upon political and not reli-
gious grounds.
The Emperor has paid a visit to the Duke de
Morny, " whose convalescence," the Cesetitutionsiel
says, "is retarded by an attack of bronchitis."
Notwithstanding this rather ominous announcement,
I understand that the duke is not iu any danger ;
but it is not here thought that he will be able to
preside during the debate on the address.
The Bourse was very heavy. There is a pungent
satire upon the policy of the French Government
in regard to the United States! in the expression
found in the money articles of this evening's papers :
—" Rtimours of peace in America weigh heavily
upon the market. Rents fell 15c. both for mak
and account, closing at 67.50 and 67.75. Mobilier
fell 10f. Mexican sustained • further decline
of lf.