The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-21 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Special Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Apt it 1.
With snow in Virginia 12 inches deep, and a suc-
cession of rain storms that have flloded the rivers
and softened all the roads of the North, it is not

likely that either of the opposing armies under

Generale Grant and Lee will make a forward move,

went for the next 10 days. Whatever the Confe-
derates may do in the meantime, General Grant is
busying himself with the reorganisation of the
Army of the Potomac, and has already weeded out

of it moat of the drunken and many of the incom.

potent officers appointed to command for politics
reasons. There are indications, also, that Grant—

on whom so much has been devolved, and on whom
such serious responsibility has been thrown—is ex-

ercising his influence with the President to procure
the retirement of Mr. Stanton—without exception

the most unpopular man in the Administration, if
not i❑ the North—in favour of General Butler, and
the restoration of General M'Clellan to active duty.

The indications are still stronger that his presumed
plan of advancing upon Richmond with two separate
armies—one by way of the Rapidan, and the other
by way of the Peninsula—will be disconcerted by
Gen. Lee, and the transference of the seat of war
from Southern to Northern soil by the invasion of

Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio, and a movement
of Gen. Joseph Johnston upon Chattanooga for the
recovery of Tennessee. Under such circumstances,
Richmond, which has been strengthened so as to be
able to support a long siege and to defend itself
against an army ten times as strong as its garrison,
is not likely to be very seriously threatened; and
Charleston and Mobile need be in no immediate ap•
prehension of danger, or even of attack. To keep
up the spirits of the Northern people, and especially
that portion of them who are threatened for the
first time with feeling in their own homes the mise-

ries which their armies have carried into Virginia,
and other regions which war has reconverted into
the original wilderness, or something worse, it is
announced by all the organs of the Government that

the Federal armies amount to at least a million of
men, and those of the Confederates to only 300,000.
Few, however, except those who think it a refined
pleasure to be cheated, believe that the Federals
possess even so many as half a million of effective
men, or, whatever the disparity of timbers between
the two armies may be, that there will be much dis-
parity of strength when they come int, collision on
the field. In all the drawn battles fought by
Ni'Clellan his forces were greatly in excess of those
opposed to him, and in all the victories achieved by
General Grant he has not only had the advantage
of a naval auxiliary force upon the rivers, but an
army four and even five times larger than that of
his antagonist. In the capture of Vicksburg, which
was the first great step in his career, his forces
amounted to at least 100,000 men, while those of
General Pemberton (the sick and disabled al'

taunted) were at most 20,000; and notwithstanding
this immense numerical advantage, and the aid of a
flotilla of gunboats on the Mississippi, it took him
sixty-five days to accomplish his task, and might
have taken him a hundred and sixty-fiveif the garri-
son had not been reduced to the extremity of famine,
having eaten their last mule and dog in default of
all other sustenance. Great things are expected of
him, but those are sanguine indeed who think, be-
cause he has done much on a small scale, that his
failure on a great scale is impossible. It remains to
be seen what his energies, his abilities, and above all
his dogged perseverance, can accomplish against an
equal or a nearly equal force in the open field, led
by the most accomplished soldier of the age, and
one more trusted in and beloved by his men than

any captain since the days of the First Napoleon
The shock will be a desperate one when it comes.
That it will end the war, on whichever side victory
may declare itself, few are so credulous or self-
blinded as to believe. Even the two or three Ad-
ministration journals that continue to " blether"
about "the beginning of the end," and the restora-
tion of the Union by the 4th of July, only write in
this strain because they think it flatters the popular
prejudice or foments the public passion, and not
because they mean what they say. Their glowing
anticipations are mere " buncombe," and have little
effect except to make the 4th of July ridiculous.
It is to-day announced from Washington, under
the authority of the Secretary of the Navy, that 35
Federal war ships are unable to put to sea for want
of sailors to navigate them. Surely a Government
that labours under a difficulty like this ought not
only to be liberal in its offers of pay before enlist-
ment, but generous in its treatment of the men
afterwards. Above all things, is should be just to
all parties, high or low, and as rigorous in the en•
forcement of discipline on the part of the officers as
on that of the men. How far the undoubted un-
popularity of the service may be accounted for by
the brutality and drunkenness of those in command