The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-21 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 7.
The three days of Gettysburg have saved Wash-
ington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Gen. Meade,
brave, modest, and master of his business and re-
sou

rtes, has done what Gen. M'Clellan did twice
before. He has rescued the Federal capital from the
disgrace of hostile occupation, and cleared the soil
of the North from the presence of the invader. The
great result has been purchased by the lives of
30,000 men, of whom as many died on the one side
as on the other. Beyond this, and considered as
bringing
the war nearer to its termination, the
awful carnage of those bloody battlefields has been
utterly in vain. North and South have so
many
citizens the less ; the North has won prestige, and
the South has lost it; and both have learnt
the
lesson that, in this particular quarrel, be is strongest
who stands on his own soil upon the defeceive. l\'o
other result is apparent_ At this moment no one
knows the exact position of Gen. Lee. who has been
repulsed with as great bravery as he attacked, de-
feAted in his immediate object and compelled to
retreat, but who is still at the head of a numerous
army, master of the mountain passes through
which no enemy can follow him, and ready to dis-
pute the advance of the foe upon Southern territory
with as much obstinacy as that with which he him-
self was confronted at the then obscure, but now for
ever memorable little town of Gettysburg. The
Federal Government and people are naturally much
elated at a success on wick a few days ago it
seemed over-sanguine to calculate, and, with cha-
racteristic elasticity of spirit, as jubilant as if the
war were over, and nothing more was to be
done but to grant a general amnesty and
shake hands all round over the restoration of the
Union. And as, according to the proverb, "it
never rains but it pours," the North, well con-
tented with one victory, has been rewarded by a
second. Vicksburg there is no reason to disbelieve
has actually fallen. A short Caesarean despatch
from Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy
announced that it surrendered to the United States'

forces on the 4th of July. Another non-officia
despatch, via Cairo, confirmed the statement, adding
that General Pemberton, on the morning of the na-
tional anniversary, offered to surrender if allowed
to march out with the honours of war; that Gene-
ral Grant would listen to no terms ; and that, after
consultation with Lis officers, General Pemberton
surrendered unconditionally. The friends of the
South in this city do not know upon whom to vent
their wrath at this unlooked-for catastrophe. Some
blame the inaction of General Joseph Johnstone,
who, they affirm, was in a position, with ordinary
energy and enterprise, to have raised the siege a
week ago, while others openly accuse General Pem-
berton, who is a Northern man and a native of
Philadelphia, of treachery, and the receipt of a
heavy bribe from the Federal Government to sur-
render on the 4th of July, with a view to theatrical
effect. However the truth may be, it should be
remembered that this is not the first time that a
similar accusation has been raised against the Ge-
neral by the Southern press at Richmond, as well
as by the sympathisers with the South in this city,
and that early in June last he issued a proclama-
tion to the garrison of Vicksburg denying that he
would sell Vicksburg, and stating that only when
the last pound of food had been consumed and the
last man perished in the trenches would he surren-
der the city. These were brave words. They have
not been followed up by deeds equally desperate,
and until the actual truth be known General Pem.
berton may blame his own braggadocio for the suss-
picion which has fallen upon him.
People who were so remarkably careless and in-
different last week under the prospect of invasion
explain that the indifference was the result of
knowledge and of well-based confidence, not of
ignorance or apathy, and that they knew there
never was the least danger to any of the cities of
the North, and especially to Washington. When
Wall-street learnt on the unsafe authority of the
" sensation" journals that Lee was utterly routed
and in full flight to the Potomac, which he was
certain never to reach, it measured the results of
General Meade's victory by a fall of six per cent. in
the price of gold, and a rise of two and three per
cent. in the v,,lue of Government securities; but
taking counsel of the last official despatch of Gen.
Meade, and calmly reviewing the whole circum-
stances, it modified its opinion, and sent gold up
and securities down again by about one-half their
previous rise. To-day the feeling was much less
hopeful than it was yesterday. Until late in the
afternoon, when the capture of Vicksburg was an-
nounced, gold slid down rapidly to 331, a lower
point than it has touched for six or eight months.
Prior to that windfall of good fortune cautious men
declared that the backbone of the rebellion was not
broken ; that the end was no nearer than it was be
fore; that the capture of Vicksburg grew less pro-
bable every hour ; that Gen. Banks was not alone
in danger of defeat, but of enforced surrender at
Port Hudson ; that all the recent advantages gained
by the Federals were idle and transitory as a name
written in water; that New Orleans would probably
share the fate of Gen. Banks, if that were adverse;
that a Federal advance to Richmond, which hot
headed zealots were again urging, would restore
to General Lee the opportunity of victory which
he let slip at Gettysburg ; and that short of
European intermediation there was no agency
whatever that could bid the sullen and resolute
South and the vain but unstable North make up
their difference, and consent to dwell apart, two in
political and social sentiment, but one perhaps in
the amicable relations of commerce. But upon the
confrmation of the news the public sentiment took
once more a hopeful turn. Gen. Banks it was
thought would assuredly be reinforced by General
Grant, the Mississippi would be free from its source
to its mouth, and the South would sue for peace. It
is here that the Northern people fall into deplorable
error. They know that they love the Union them-
selves, and cannot understand that the South should
abhor it. The war has been hammering the truth
into the Northern mind with very hard blows ; but
the Northern mind has not been ductile to receive
it. In adversity the Northern people may have be-
lieved to a qualified extent in Southern estrange-
ment; bur in prosperity they refuse to admit that
any American can in his heart be false to a Union
which has made America one of the Great powers
of the earth. Nevertheless, the question of interven-
tion or intermediation, of which rumourstomore or
arrive by
less precise and authentic continue
every mail from Europe, scarcely excites the same
England and France,
with hostility as before.
other '
with or without the aid of SipfatEbinea
andsigns are that Powers,the
great were to propose an armistice,
and North-western eo-
great bulk ot the Northern.
pie would agree to the ploposal after a faint Ppro.
test. The forced conscriptiou-to which. the Federal
Government must resort, or ch —is so odious to the
whole people of a
fighting age that foreign media-
tion would be accepted, if only
for the certainty that
it would put an end to all danger from this
source. If the war is to continue even for a
twelvemonth Mr. Lincoln must have a new army of
at least a quarter of a million of men, He cannot
get such an army, or a third of it, by voluntary
enlistment ; nor by the persuasive power of all the
greenbacks that Mr. Chase's
steam engines can
print off, if they work night and day, to fill the
pockets of Irish and German mercenaries; and the
aid of the negro, even to the extent of only 10,000
men, is not to be obtained, even though General
Fremont,
or General Butler, should offer to lead
them on a graad raid of slaughter and pillage
through the rich plantations of South Carolina,
Mississippi, and Alabama. A conscription, or a
collapse, is the question which the Federal Govern-
ment must decide ; and it is ore so perilous that
Mr. Lincoln may well be excused for declining to
meddle with it as long as any chance remains in
the chapter of accidents to extricate him from a di-
lemma in which it is as fatal to stand still as it may
be to go forward.
"Independence Day" was duly celebrated on the
day after the repulse of General Lee, but before the
details were known. Whatever may have been the
tone of sentiment in other cities, the Fourth of July
orations in New York betrayed a strong and steady
bias in favour of peace. It would seem as if love for
the Union, no longer the fierce and all-absorbing pas-