The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-15 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

FROM RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON.
'(From the )Special Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 27.
So far as my own experience goes it would appear
that there is no more difficulty in passing from
Washington to Richmond and Richmond to Wash-
ington than there is in proceeding from the latter
place to Baltimore, or from Augusta to Charleston.
Of course, I would not have your readers imagine
that it is desirable for a stranger to follow the
example of the able author of " Guy Livingstone,"
and to talk secession publicly for many weeks in
Baltimore before he hazards the experiments of
passing through the lines to Richmond. With such
antecedents he will probably insure failure when
he makes his effort to cross the border ; but, as-
suming that he possesses ordinary discretion and
confidence, there is nothing to prevent a man cross-
ing backward and forward when he pleases except
considerable exposure on the Potomac river and
possibly a long walk upon either bank. There
is, in fact, abundant reason to think that the seats
of the two rival Governments of this continent
habitually swarm with emissaries from the enemy.
Such will probably always be the case when the
belligerents speak the same language, and more so
where their lines stretch over such an immensity of
area. But it is felt in Richmond, and probably
also in Washington, that the presence of spies is of
wonderfully little importance. There is nothing
that could injure the Confederate cause to be
scented out in the streets of Richmond. for upon the
whole, considering the irksomeness, the pressure,
and the weariness engendered by the war, I do not
believe that history can exhibit so harmonious and
homogeneous a nation as the Southerners, Simi-
larly, from various reasons, and chiefly, as I believe,
from their ignorance about the South, the war
lever in the North has swept opposition before it,
since General Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania
and the fall of Vicksburg. It will take at least
twelve months more of hope deferred before the
North consent to drain the bitter cup so long and
so resolutely held away from his lips by stanch
old George 111. That this cup will have to be
drained, if not within the next twelve months,
at least within the next twelve years, is, in
my judgment, as inexorable a fact as a mathemati-
cal demonstration, as much beyond Federal preven-
tion as the revolution of the planets.

There is a strange shadowy sense of unreality
attached to passing 16 months in and about Rich-
mond, and then waking up to find oneself in Wash-
ington. To describe such a transition would demand
not only unrivalled descriptive and antithetical ex-
cellence, but also some such quaintness of conceit as
has exhibited Rip Van Winkle starting from his
long slumber in Sleepy Hollow. In Richmond the
spectator has for months and months been familiar
with war about his path and about his bed, and at
all his meals and under every roof. War is breathed
in at every breath, wafted upon every breeze, heard
in every sound, visible at every step. For grace and
elegance and lettered ease there is neither time nor
superfluity of resource ; nor, it must be added, are
they compatible with the sublime earnestness of
temper exhibited by man and woman. Sentries at
the head of every street substantiate the passer's
identity and investigate his right to be absent from
the army. As earliest dawn breaks, you are awak-
ened by the long monotonous chorus of thousands of
negroes, engaged in completing the defensive works
around Richmond, and going forth cheerfully to their
labour, which has long ago assumed such proportions
as to defy the assault of 200,000 men. This is no idle
statement of my own, but taken from the lips of the
oldest, ablest, and least boastful of Confederate offi-
cers, whose name will suggest itself to every reader.
Cannon are constantly seen in the streets—either
new 12- pounder Napoleons going up to the army from
the Tredegar Works, or guns which have undergone
repair, or field-pieces which are going North or
South ; the well-known lean, lank, ragged " gray-
back" troops, with the same lordly defiant air of in-
dividuality and self-assertion as ever,con stantly troop
through the city, with their old wild, discordant yells
making day or night hideous. The familiar Southern
tunes of "Dixie" or " The Mocking Bird," execrably
interpreted by a few fifes, a cornet, and a drum, con-
trast marvellously with the rich swell of fine Ger-
man bands in Washington, which render to perfec-
tion the " Last Rose of Summer," or one of Men-
delssohn's superb marches, crashing among the dis-
tant echoes of Pennsylvania Avenue. And yet there
is a heart, a verve, and a sauciness about the Southern
" Dixie" and the mien of its interpreters, which are
looked for in vain among the stolid German musi-
cians of W? ashington and the gaudy troops bedizened
with gold lace who follow them.
But other symptoms of war, with the exception
of the uniforms in the streets, Washington has none
to show. The redundancy of " greenbacks"—those
evidences, according to Mr. Seward, of a mighty
nation's exuberant prosperity—is very perceptible
in the increased crowd of the streets and the hungry
look of greed which every face wears. But perhaps
there is no sadder sign of the times which have
brought sudden wealth to all and moral thoughtful-
ness to none, than the übiquity and boldness of the
frail sisterhood who throng every avenue and public
resort, seeking the smiles of the contractors, pecu-
lators, and nouveaux riches, and blending in a scene
which could alone be photographed in language by
the pen of a Juvenal. Ou every side money flows,
as though the Potomac were the Par.:toles. The
dome of the Capitol, which once promised to share
the fate without rivalling the beauty of Cologne
Cathedral, is finished, and surmounted by a Goddess
of such Liberty as even Madame Roland never con-
ceived. The hotels are thronged to bursting; Wil-
lards, in particular, is occupied by an excited, pike-
eyed seething crowd, such as vibrates in the coulisses
of the Parisian Bourse. At night theatres, gambling
boasts, " Varieties," and worse dens of infamy,
veiled under no pretence at disguise, vie with the
attractions of the " inspired Maid of Philadelphia,"
Miss Anna Dickinson. Mr. Seward's optimism is
accepted without thought or comment ; no sound of
war save the occasional boom of cannon being tried
at the Navy-yard (a sound soothing to Yankee
vanity) ever flutters the senses ; Mr. Lincoln and
-Nita Chase openly, and Mr. Seward secretly, are
Bpeculating much more as to their chances for the
next Presidency than as to the strength of General
Lee or the designs of President Davis.
Proceed next to New York, and the recollections
of Richmond, blurred by intercourse with Washing-
ton, fade into the hazy distance, and can be reoalled
only by a vigorous effort of the understanding. But
as he journeys northwards from Washington the
passenger cannot but dreamily contrast the memory
of his recent sufferings upon the overtasked railroads
of a Dixie" with the speed, the comfort, and the
roominess of the Northern car. I shall not attempt
to carry your readers into Broadway—a thousand
times described, but as ilidescribable as Niagara—
nor to enter upon attempt at detail. There is such
matter for all feeling in this street that the mind
sinks crushed. Luxury, ostentation, heedlessness,
heedlessness—the richest furs, the gaudiest silks, the
brightest bonnets, the moste glittering
c a nnes,diamonds,
operas, theatres, concerts, ra re 6
cafes hta
shows of every hue—why should I seek to prolong
the list? At Delmonico's famous restaurant, or at
the Maison Doreo, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians,
Englishmen discuss wines and viands to which no-
thing superior can be exhibited at Philippe's or at
Vefour'7. As for a thought of the war, of the
500,000 souls which it has hurled into eternity,
from the North, or the 200,000 Confederates who
have died grimly pro arts et focis—Why speak or
think of such a ghastly theme? Good taste for-
bids its mention ; nevertheless, if ever among the
upper ten thousand its name is breathed, it struck
me that four times out of five the sym-
pathy was with the South and Jeff. Davis.
Stately po:icemen in blue or gray uniforms
patronise the ladies if hustled in crowded Broad-
way or take sly drinks with admiring friends.
Why is it that Democracy converts the hotel
clerk, the steamboat or railway conductor, the
policeman, and such like into a kind of demi-
god—a man only as good as hie neighbour, but
vastly greater and loftier ? Occassionally, with the
usual fanfares of magnificent bands, regiments
" from our country's glorious battlefields" parade
along Broadway with battle flags tattered and
torn, and (as is insinuated) riddled into shreds by