The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-02 00:00:00

Position of Affairs in the South.

Tha following letter from General Seymotl' de,
scribes the present position of affairs in the South.
General Seymour was one of the prisoners of war
who were placed under fire at Charleston, and has
just been released. The letter is addressed to Mr.
Dodge, of New York :
"Williamstown, Massachusetts, Aug. 15.
" My dear Sir,—You ask for nay impressions of the pre-
sent condition of the Southern Confederacy, and you shall
have them, For the benefit of our cause I wish they
might be impressed upon every soul in the land, that the
confidence begotten of my three months' observations in
the interior of the South might be shared by every man
who has the least connection with the responsibilities of this
struggle, and I am sure that these opinions are not peculiar
to myself. Every one of the 60 officers just exchanges will
express the same; every one of our men, whether from the
gaols of Charleston, or the pens of Macon and Anderson-
ville, will confidently tell the same story. The rebel cause
is fast failing from exhaustion. Their two grand armies
have been reinforced this summer from the last resources of
the South. From every corner of the land every old man
and every boy capable of bearing a rifle has been impressed,
willingly or unwillingly, and hurried to the front. Lee's
army was the first so strengthened, it was at the expense of
Hood's. Governor Brown told the truth with a plainness
that was very bitter, but it was none the less truth. Let me
extract a few prominent statements from his proclamation
of July 9, addressed to the reserved militia of Georgia :
A late correspondence with the President of the Confede-
rate States satisfies my mind that Georgia is to be loft to
our own resources to supply the reinforcements to General
Johnston's army, which are indispensable to the protection
of Atlanta, and to prevent the State being overrun by the
overwhelming numbers now under the command of the
Federal General upon our soil. But there is need of further
reinforcements, as will be seen by the accompanying letter
of General Johnston ; . . and it becomes my duty to call
out every man in the state able to bear arms, as fast as they
can be armed, to aid in the defence of our homes and altars
and the graves of our ancestors. If the Confederate Go-
vernment will not send the large cavalry force (now engaged
in raiding and repelling raids) to destroy the long line of
railroads over which General Sherman brings his supplies
from Nashville, and thus compel him to retreat with the
loss of most of his army, the people of Georgia, who have
already been drawn upon more heavily in proportion to
population than those of any other States in the Confederacy,
must, at all hazards and at any sacrifice, rush to the front,
If General Johnson's army is destroyed, the Gulf States
are thrown open to the enemy, and we are ruined.' There
must, indeed, have been desperate weakness when Georgia,
and the Southern cause with it, wereso neglected that Lee's
army might be made equal to the task of holding Grant to
the Potomac or the James; and the people of the South are
intelligent enough to understand and to appreciate the fact,
and they have lost heart accordingly. The following is from
a letter written by one rebel to another, that accidentally
fell into the hands of one of my fellow prisoners, and for the
authenticity of which I vouch Very few persons are
preparing to obey the late call of the Governor. His sum-
mons will meet with no response here. The people are soul-
sick and heartily tired of this hateful, hopeless strife. They
would end it if they could, but our would-be rulers will take
good care that no opportunity be given the people to vote
against it. By lies, by fraud, and by chicanery his revolu-
tion was inaugurated ; by force, by tyranny, and by the
suppression of truth it is sustained. It is nearly time that
it shouldiend ; and of sheer depletion it must end before
long. We have had enough of want and of woe, enough of
cruelty and carnage, enough of cripples and corpses. There
is an abundance of bereaved parents, weeping widows, and
orphaned children in the land. If we can, let us not increase
the number. The men who, to aggrandise themselves, or to
gratify their own ambition, brought this cruel war upon a
peaceful and prosperous country, will have to render a
fearful account of their misdeeds to a wronged, robbed, and
outraged people. Earth has no punishment sufficiently meet
for their villany here, and hell will hardly be hot enough to
scathe them hereafter.' There is certainly no small propor

tion of the Southern people—despite the lying declarations
of their generals, as we had good reason to learn—that not
only favours the progress Of our arms, but that daily prays
that this exterminating war may soon be brought to a
finality by our complete and perfect success. They have had
too much of despotism, not enough of the triumph promised
them. Many intelligent Southern gentlemen do indeed ex-
press strong hopes of their ultimate independence; but such
hope is not shared by the masses. Disappointed from the
first in not being acknowledged by foreign Powers, more
bitterly disappointed in their general expectations that
Northern cowardice or dissension would secure their ends,
but a single chance remains, and that is the result of our
next election for President. If a Democrat succeeds to Mr
Lincoln, they profess to feel sure of negotiations and their
Confederacy. They believe a Democrat will be elected. In
Mr Lincoln's re-election they see only subjugation, anni-
hilation; for the war must then continue, and continuance
is their failure and ruin. In military affairs it is an excel-
lent rule never to do what the enemy desires ; it is not
equally true in politics ? Certain it is that the remaining
hope of the South lies in Mr Lincoln's defeat. Now, I am
not enough of a politician to know whether the election of
a Democrat can result as favourably to the South as it an-
ticipates. Their wish alone may be the parent of their
belief. But I assured all who expressed that belief
that the North, as a mass, is as united as the South—
that no Democrat could be elected on a peace platform,
and that any President who would inaugurate any mea-
sure leading to peace, on the basis of Southern indepen-
dence, would be promptly hung, by loyal acclamation, to
the lamp post in front of his own presidential mansion.
However that may be, if we are but true to ourselves, there
can be but one result. What we now need is men, only
men. No substitutes or hirelings, who go forth with any
motive but their country's good, and produce but little
beyond depreciating our armies; but men, such as really
constitute the State, and boast of being freemen and sons of
freemen. If these fail to support their country's cause in
her hour of peril, they are unworthy of continuing freemen,
and should blush ever to exercise a freeman's privileges.
But if bounties be paid let it be in Southern land, not in
Northern gold, and armies of emigrants, whose sons may„,
aspire to win the rule of the nation, will cross the seas to
win the broad acres that disloyalty has forfeited to the State.
To every intelligent soldier who has fought through all
these indecisive campaigns, on almost numberless indecisive
fields, the question ccntinually arises, with touching force,
why do we not overwhelm our enemies ? Tens of thousands
of lives are lost because our array of strength is so dispro-
portionately less than that against which we battle. Every-
where we meet on nearly equal terms, when we might well
have four to one. The cost to us in blood and treasure of a
prolonged war can hardly be foreseen—the economy is in-
finite of such an effort as the glorious North should put
forth. The South will fight as long as the struggle is
equal, it will submit to such preponderance as we should
show in every field. Glance at the summer's campaigns.

If Sherman had but 50,000 or 75,000 more men the South
would be lost, because Hood would be annihilated. If
Meade had moved in the spring with reserves of 75,000 or
100,000 men Lee would have been hoplessly crushed. Even
at this moment a third column of 40,000 or 50,000 men,
rightly moved would give unopposed blows to the Confede-
racy from, which she could never rise. What folly, then,
to struggle on in this way, when we could send to the field
five times the force already there. What weakness to think
we cannot conquer the South. Behind the James only
boys and old men are to be seen, while here men buy
and sell as in the olden days of quiet, and regiments of
able-bodied citizens crowd the streets of our cities, There
is but one course consistent with Northern safety and
honour. Let the people awake to a sense of their dignity
and strength, and a few months of comparatively trifling
exertion of such effort as alone is worthy of the great North,
and the rebellion will crumble before us. Fill this draught
promptly and willingly with good and true men, send a few
spare thousands over rather than under the call, and the
summer sun of 1865 will shine upon a regenerated land.
There are seme who speak of peace. Of all Yankees the
Southern most scorns those who do not fight, but are glad
enough to employ them, as they do their slaves, to perform
their dirty work. Peace for the South would be sweet indeed
—for us, except through Southern subjugation, but anarchy
and war for ever. The Pacific the 'Western, the Eastern
States would at once fall asunder. The South would be
dominant, and the people of the North would desert e to be
driven afield, under negro owners, to hoe corn and cotton
for Southern masters. But no faint-hearted or short-sighted
policy can set aside the eternal decrees of the Almighty, who
has planted no line of division between the Atlantic and the
Western deserts, between the great lakes and the Gulf of
Mexico, that signifies His will that we should be separated;
and unless so separated peace is a delusion, and its advocacy
a treason against the wisest and holiests interests of our
country. It has been with a trust that renewed hope and
vigour might be given, when vigour and hope are needful,
that I have written, and you have my consent to using this
as you please, and I am very truly yours,
TRUMAN SEYMOUR'
Brigadier-General United States' Volunteers."

FEARFUL EPIDEMIC AT BERMUDA AND NASSAU.

—By the arrival of the Canadian mail steamer
Hibernian, we have been placed in possession of intelligence
respecting an epidemic which is now decimating the islands
of Bermuda and Nassau. To such a fearful extent has the
epidemic spread in these two islands that the resident medi-
cal practitioners are quito unable to cope with this terrible
emergency, and all the principal army surgeons of the
British troops in Canada have gone to assist them. A gen-
tleman writing from headquarters says :—I regret to learn
that the yellow fever has this season broken cut with great
virulence at Bermuda, and has made a great deal of havoc
among the troops and civilians stationed there, numbers of
whom, both officers and men, have fallen victims to the dis-
ease. The consequence has been a call for medical aisstance
from all the military surgeons now in Canada, and a num-
ber of them have kit for Portland, en route for Halifax,
from whence they will proceed to Bermuda." "Not only
is the yellow fever devastating Bermuda, but Nassau was
never in such a frightful state as at present." The fever,
it appears, was first brought to Nassau by a steamer from
Havana or Wilmington about tbree months ago, and since
then the number of deaths, especially amongst the Euro-
peans and those engaged iu the blockade running business,
has been ellen:now,