The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING

neat day. On the night of the 19th a tower of
strength was added in General Longstreet, by whom,
and by whom alone, the conspicuous victory of the
20th was reaped and garnered. It is still my
opinion that the failure to gather in the full fruits
of chat great success was one of the most lamentable
of this war.

The record of the military operations near Chat-
tanooga during the remainder of the year is not such
as to inspire satisfaction in any loyal Confederate
breast. The effect upon Federal strategy produced
by the Battle of Chicamauga was marked and im-
mediate. Grant was promoted to the command, vice
Rosencrans, " decapitated,' Sherman and 20,000
men were fetched up the Mississippi, Hooker and
two divisions brought from Virginia; the Federal
grasp:upon Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and
other States was relaxed, or altogether withdrawn ;
General Banks's expedition to Rio Grande was
undertaken by so insignificant a force as to make
any attempt at the subjugation of Texas, with its
237,321 square miles of area, an extravagant farce.
But it is doubtful whether, before the junction of
Sherman with Grant, starvation would not have
forced back the Federala into Tennessee had not the
Confederates permitted General Hooker to wrest
from them Racoon Mountain, and to open water
communication with the famishing occupants of
Chattanooga. From that moment there was little
wisdom in General Bragg's clinging to Lookout
Mountain and the valley which divides it from
Missionary Ridge, and had he established his
lines slowly and at his leisure upon the
latter height, bringing all his artillery safely off
from Lookout Mountain, he might have defied Gen.
Grant, though outnumbering him two to one. But
just as the Federals were attaining their greatest
strength Longstreet, with the best third of Bragg's
army, was sent away to Knoxville, and Grant was
lured on to an attack by the bait of his opponent's
long and weak lines. The sequel is known to your
readers ; but, in spite of the discomfiture on the 23d
and 24th of Nov., I have not a word of apology to
offer for them when driven on the 25th from one of
the strongest lines which I have seen in this war.
The best that can be said for them is that their
enemy's lines, two and three deep, and backed by a
powerful reserve, were stretched in alarming pano-
rama before them, that they were greatly outnum-
bered, and that a chronic distrust in General Bragg
(whether well or ill founded I cannot venture to say)
had sapped their morale. The Federals gained little
beyond the pieces of artillery which they had lost
at Chicamauga by a victory which they had drawn
heavily upon their resources to secure. An attempt
directed by the characteristic energy of Grant, to
press heavily on Bragg's rear was severely chastised
by Gen. Cleburne, who won golden opinions upon
Nov. 25, and while covering the beaten army's re.
treat. All attempts to take advantage of his suc-
cess by Gen. Grant are plainly abandoned for this
winter. Atlanta is still 138 miles distant from the
nearest point to it accessible by water. The great
State of Georgia is thoroughly aroused and awakened,
and I have this day been assured by one of the Sena-
tors that Spring will see every Georgian from 16 to
60 in the field, ready to dispute to the death every
inch of the difficult ground which separates Atlanta
from Chattanooga.

The movements undertaken during October and
in the first week of this month by General Lee's
army in Virginia indicate that General Meade still
considers himself no match for the Confederates in
the field. In October Gen. Lee's advance towards
Washington was the signal for Gen. Meade, in spite
of his large numerical superiority, to make an
alarmed and rapid retreat. In December an ad-
vance across the Rapidan on General Meade's part
brought General Lee promptly to his front, when
the Federal commander, wiser than Burnside at
Fredericksburg, shunned the battle which was
offered to him, and slunk off across the river in the
night. The day before Meade's retreat Gen. Lee
called a council of war, and advocated an instan-
taneous attack upon the Federals, who were about,
as he conceived, to slip away from before him. But
it was the unanimous opinion of all the other Con-
federate Generals that Gen. Meade, having crossed
the river in search of his enemy, would be com-
pelled to attack him when opportunity offered ;
and Gen. Lee consented to wait until the next day
before commencing his attack. The morning came
and showed that his enemy had flown.

The operations of Gen. Longstreet against Knox-
ville, though baild for the moment, will inevitably
lead hereafter to material results, and it is my be-
lief that the Federals will not be left in un dis-
turbed possession of E ist Tennessee during the
winter months. My anticipations that Longstreet,
if forced to abandon the siege of Knoxville, would
have no difficulty in getting away unharmed, were
fully and satisfactorily realised. It is understood
that his force is lying near Rogersville, in Hawkins
Cou.:ity, Tennessee, between the Church and Hols-
ston Rivers, and in a country which yields abun-
dant supplies for all his winter requirements.
There is no indiscretion ha revealing, what has
hitherto been regarded as a secret, that General
Joseph E. Johnstone will immediately assume com-
mand of the army lately commanded by General
Bragg, and the relations between Generals John-
ston and Longstreet have always been as happy as
these existing between the latter and General Lee.
It is, as I stated at the outset, my confident belief
that upon Generals Johnston and Longstreet will
fall the brunt of the spring, and not impossibly of
the winter campaign.
I should not omit a word in commendation of the
ability, energy, and steadfastness with which Gen.
J. E. B. Stuart has conducted the arduous opera-

tious intrusted for the last four months to the im-
portant arm of the service which he commands. An
opportunity of comparing the cavalry commanded
by Gen. Wheeler and that which obeys Gen. Stuart
has taught me to appreciate the manifest superio-
rity of the latter General and his men. It cannot be
denied that the extravagant estimate of the prowess
and capabilities of cavalry entertained at the begin-
ning of the war, and especially among the Confede-
rates, has long been found to be a delusion. Let not
the reader imagine that the irregular cavalry of

this continent, whether Federal or bonfederate, will
bear a moment's comparison with the trained squa-
drons of Europe, or that as an item of strength in
battle they can be counted on and trustingly em-
ployed. It is as scouts and reporters of the opera-
tions conducted along the interminable length of
frontier country now devastated by war that their
chief utility lies. Occasionally in this branch of the
service there is tossed to the surface some daring
partisan leader, about whom for many comin,gyears
such stories as were lately heard about Tarleton and
Marion will be repeated round many a fireside.
Such a representative man on the Confederate side
was Turner Ashby, formerly a citizen of modest life
and retiring disposition, but whose local fame,
furced in the hotbed of war, scarcely yielded in
lustre at the time of his death to the star of "Stone-

wall" Jackson. Such a man at this moment is

Major Mosby, the most daring mosstrooper who has
yet ridden on raid and scoured the border, who
seems to have permanently established himself
within the Federal lines, and to swoop at will upon
sutlers, pickets, quartermasters, and newspaper re-
porters with impunity and audacity not inferior to
the Alabama's, as she pursues hor unchecked preda•
tory flight, and kindles the flames of her victims
upon every sea.
It passes, I confess, my wit to discern how, con-
sistently even with his own view of the truth,
President Lincoln can so modify or distort this re-
sume of the military incidents of 1863 as to employ
the language which, in his recent singular Message
to Congress, has flowed from his pen. What does he
see tojastify him in talking about pardon to rebels,
who laugh either at his mercy or his severity, and
who have in the field 1,000 pieces of artillery, and
more than a quarter of a million tried and hardened
soldiers ? Why offer admittance into his union of
any insurgent State which exhibits among one-tenth
of its population (slaves included) Union sentiments,
and how will the issue be affected if putative sena-
tors from South Carolina and every other Southern
State take their seats in the Congress at Washing-
, ton P Why does not Mr. Lincoln admit upon, the
same terms representatives from Ireland or Cuba,
when it is susceptible of proof that he has as much
control over both as kio has over the State of Ala-
bama? Can he deny that the year closes with marked
evidences of superiority possessed by the Confede-

rates over the Federal army in Virginia, that Gen.
Longstreet still clings to East Tennessee, that Gen.
Johnston is infusing new life and heart into General
Bragg's army, and that he is backed by all the
aroused strength of the most powerful of the Con-
federate States ? Besides, the obstacles which from
the commencement have hampered the Federals in
their strategy are as actively operative as ever. No
yet succeeded in getting far
Faewdaeyralfraormm
yitshaws as
sr
base; their enemy has con-
stantly moved upon an inner and concealed line of
communication. It will be possible next spring to
throw Longstreet into Georgia or Virginia at a mo-
ment's notice, and without the knowledge of his op-
ponents. Early in next year another important link
in the interior line of railroad communication con-
necting Richmond with the South will be finished,
and united with Queens-
boroupgahn,viinlle, NorthinVCiargroinhinaa. The Legislatures of
each State in the Confederacy have recently been in
session, and have dissolved, breathing threatenings
and slaughter against their hated foe. In the Le-
gislature of North Carolina—the State which, of
s.ll others, is held to be most deeply imbued with
Union sentiment—there was a motion for offering
to the North proposals for peace upon the basis of
independent State action, but only two members
voted for it. The Federals have, it is true, what
the lawyers call pecks possessio in Tennessee, but
it has taken nearly three years to give them a gain
of little more than 100 miles intersected through-
out their length and breadth by two large and
majority of the population con-
venient navigable rivers,
.and in the end the sen-
timent of the large
All the best and
re-
mainsbrfighting in the field
aves
bravest of
bitterlyth e
A hostiler
ka o s toa fi a them.r
are
—most of them, like Arkansas' adopted son, Gen.
Cleburne, in the army of Gen. Bragg—and because,
out of a population scarcely exceeding 400,000 souls,
of whom one-third are slaves, there are not found
men enough to hold the soil against a few scattered
Federals, it is claimed, forsooth, that Arkansas is
loyal to the Union !

Could some power bestow upon President Lin-
coln and his advisers the gift of seeing themselves
as others see them, what a picture would their
handiwork, as read in this once happy and fa-
voured continent of North America, present to
their view ! A broad belt of devastation sweeps for
hundreds of miles along the frontier which separates
theexasrerated combatants, and within its precincts
fire and sword and havoc and rapine have done their
worst. In no other words can the desolation of
Northern Virginia and Tennessee find such forcible
exposition as in those of the prophet Joel :—" That
which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust
eaten, and that which the locust hath left bath the
cankerworm eaten, and that which the cankerworm
hath left bath the caterpillar eaten." Behind, a
gloomier vision ascends. The whole land groans
with dungeons and bastiles—in the North 34,000
Confederates, in the South nearly 20,000 Federals
languish in imprisonment—in both sections an un-
known number A suspected and often nnoffending
civilians and women pay the penalty of impu-
ted opinion. In the North, Johnson's Island,
Forts Warren, Lafayette, Delawarre, and 11I'llenry,
Camp Chase and Camp Douglas are words of terror
known throughout the civilised globe; in the
South, Castle Thunder, and the Libby Prison, Belle
Isle, Danville, and Americus are choking with pri-
soners, and there is a cry for increasing prison
accommodation. Where, it may well be asked,
will it all end the precarious tenure of
Tennessee, which may be wrested from him
any day, and which is substantially all the
success which his armies have gained this year, suf-
ficient to justify President Lincoln in continuing the
anguish of so large a portion of the human race for
yet another year!

THE ALLEGED MURDER AT HITCHIN.

Yesterday morning Samuel Wabey, aged about 33, and
Joseph Harmer, aged 14, were brought up before the magis-
trates at Hitchin, charged with stealing £8 or from the
person of E tward Foreman on the night of Monday, the
11th inst. Thos. Currell, a labourer, the first witness exa-
mined, said ho left his house about 25 minutes past 7 to go
from Gosmore to Preston. At the bottom of Preston-hill
he saw a man lying on the righthand side of the road on
his right side, with his feet towards the palings and his head
in the roadway. He mid, "K ake up 1 dont be lying here."
The man did not answer, but breathed hard as if snoring,
and the witness thought he was drunk. After he had left
him about 10 minutes, and had nearly got as far as the
Chequers publichouse, he met the two prisoners. Wabey
went on with the lad (the other prisoner) towards Gosmore,
and the wine fid the other way towards Preston. Fredk
Sharp, of Preston, saw Mr. Foreman on the evening of
Monday, the 11th, just after 7. He was riding in his mule
cart by Preston, and the mule was trotting when ho passed,
but about 50 yards further on he went faster, and witness
thought the animal had broke into a gallop, and it seemed
to keep on so far as he could hear it go. Samuel Brown, a
grocer at Gosmore, said he left his house on Monday evening
about 7, and after going about 500 yards on the road to-
wards Hitchin a white mule or pony and cart passed very
fast. He had to jump into the ditch to get out of the way.
There was no one in the cart. Maria Harvey, of the White
Horse Inn, Hitchin, said that on Monday evening the pri•
sonar Wabey came to her house and had a pint of bear, of
which he drank part, and then ordered another. Ho offered
a sovereign in payment, but she had not change, and asked
him if he had any smaller money to give her. He gave her
a shilling, saying, "If it's known they'll say I've got too
much money." Mary Hingley said that the prisoner lived
in one of her husband's cottages. He owed back rent,
which he was paying up in weekly instalments, and on
Monday evening he called and paid her 6s. about 9 o'clock.
Superintendent William Pangbourne stated that on the
morning of Tuesday, the 12th, he received information of
Mr, Foreman's death. He told Wabey when he was taken
into custody, that he was charged with the robbery, and he
admitted that Currell had met him and told him the man
was lying drunk in the road, but that he (Wabey) passed
down there and saw no one. Witness told the boy the charge
separately, and he made a similar statement to that made
by Wabey. On Sunday morning last witness went to
Wabey's house and saw his wife. He asked her as to a
sovereign which he had found out she had changed, and she
produced an umbrella she had bought and said she had only
Is. 6d. more. She refused to say where she got the sove-
reign. Witness was upstairs at that time, and there was a
woman's dress hanging up in the room which the prisoner's
wife owned to be hers. She said them was nothing in it,
and witness felt in the ordinary pocket but found nothing.
small pocket under the band apparently made for tho pur-
pose, in that pocket there were four sovereigns, two wrapped
up in one piece of rag and two wrapped in another. There
On a more minute examination, however, lae discovered a
was also a receipt for 10s. she had given a Miss Marks, in
part payment of an old account, on Tuesday morning.
Police-constable Young deposed that by Superintendent
Pangbourne's orders he searched the house minutely, and
under the bed found a slop jacket, which the prisoner
Wabey's wife said belonged to her husband. There were
marks of blood on one sleeve and inside the band. The
witness took the jacket away, it was shown to Wabey,
who said he had wiped his nose, which had been bleeding,
on it on the Monday, while he was at work. On Sunday
afternoon the boy said to witness "We did meet Currell, and
he told us there was a man lying at the bottom of the hill,
and when we got to the bottom wo saw him and stopped.
Wabey touched him and said Halloo p He did not move
or speak. Wabey gave me the tools he was carrying,
a hay knife and needle, and the man at that time was
lying on his face. Wabey turned him over and said,
don't know him.' Wabey put his hands in the man's
pockets, and told me to go on. I went on two or three yards.
I saw him pull something out of the man's pockets, and he
came then running after me and said, I have got the -
money: The man's face was covered with blood, and the
ground was very bloody. Wabey did not knock him or kick
him." The prisoner Wabey said, " The last statement is
quite untrue." The boy immediately said, "It is quite true
what Mr. Young has said, and I told him so." Mr. Super-
intendent Pangbourne asked for a remand, as that was all
the evidence he was prepared with, which was granted.

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JANUARY 20, 1864.

STATE OF TRADE,

MANCHESTER, Jan. W.—Unfavourable commercial and
political advices have almost paralysed the yarn and cloth
market. In shipping yarns the amount of business done
to-day has been very small, Offers have been made for
considerable quantities for China and the Mediterranean,
but at prices too low to lead to business. Some trade yarns
are apparently flatter than those suitable to shippers, and
prices have declined more in proportion. Sellers say there
has been scarcely business enough to test prices, and that
the irregularity prevailing among spinners renders it almost
impossible to state with accuracy, or in fact so as not to
mislead, what the extent of decline has been. One of our
leading mercantile houses states the decline in cop yarns is
equal to Id. per lb. on all descriptions, as compared with
the rates of last Friday. In the cloth market buyers have
been keeping quite aloof from business, and have not even
been making offers. Under these circumstances it is diffi-
cult to arrive at a correct quotation of prices, but there is
no doubt that if sales had to be pressed they would have
to be made at a considerable reduction on last week. The
chief cause of depression is the state of affairs between
Denmark and Germany, added to which the fears enter-
tained as to the alteration of discounts exert no inconsi-
derable influence. The impression before alluded to in
our trade reports as to the future prices of cotton also
continue to affect business in the market. It would
be seen by Mr. Farnall's and Mr. Maclure's reports
to the Central Executive Relief Committee yesterday that
the number of applicants for relief in the week ending the
9th inst. had increased by upwards of 10,000 persons,
owing to the closing of mills, and there is reason to fear
that the number will go on increasing for some time to
come. Well informed people say that the number thrown
out of work for some weeks to come will exceed anything
that has yet taken place. At Stockport one of the largest
mills in the district is going from six to two days per week.
At Blackburn it is estimated that 5,000 looms are about to
be stopped. At Accrington, Darwen, Stalybridge, Ashton,
Glossop, 11,:,'field, and Mottram, and many other places,
spindles and looms are likely to be stopped altogether,
while a great addition is likely to be made to those on
short time. On all hands we hear that trade does not pay,
and that spinners and manufacturers in many cases are
becoming too impoverished to continue their present risks.
Messrs. John Slagg and Co. report of the cloth market of
this day :--•" We have again to report a very inanimate
market, buyers appearing more than ever determined to do
as little business as possible. Prices are nominally the
same as on Tuesday last, and we make no change in our
quotations, but it offers wore made for quantities, no doubt
some concessions would be made by sellers."
LEEDS, 19th—There has been a moderate attendance at
the cloth halls this morning, both of buyers and sellers, but
the market was very quiet. The weather, being wet and
sloppy, operates against the spring trade, and to•day's pur-
chases were chiefly miscellaneous, no great quantity being
taken of any particular class of goods. This applies to
business in the coloured cloth hall. In the white cloth hall
a moderate amount of business was done in mediums in the
balk state. There is no change in the report from the manu-
facturers in the outlying districts, most of whom keep well
employed. Goods and wool alike keep steady. The flax
trade is steady, and a goed demand is experienced for yarns
and thread.

—BARNSLEY, 19th.—The linen trade just now is fully as
brisk as it has been for some months past, and for several
description of goods there has been a very fair demand.
This has been more particularly the case with regard to
sbeetings ; some of the manufacturers, however, not having
a superabundance of the required reeds and healds, and
there being no certainty of the demand continuing, they
have not given out so much work as they otherwise would
have been warranted in doing under the circumstances.
The damask trade has been dull for some time past, owing
in a considerable degree to the continued high price of
yarns, Huckabacks, glass-cloths, and common diapers
are in moderately good request, as are window-ticks, for
blinds, of cotton and worsted as arp. Little or nothing
doing in shirtings and bedtickings. The latter branch of
the trade would appear as if it was leaving the town alto-
gether, judging from the little done in it. There has not
been much done lately in drills by the hand, while by
power there has been a tolerably fair trade. Crumb•clotbs
have risen considerably of late, and there is every prospect
of prices remaining firm. Drabbets have improved, while
there has been but little doing in the fancy trade. Most of
the handloom weavers are tolerably well employed, but the
class of goods on which they are engaged being of low qua-
lity the amount earned by them is small. Bleachers con-
tinue to be well employed, not being altogether dependent
on the town.
NOTTINGHAM, 19th.—There was a rather better attend-
ance at this Exchange-hall to-day, but the demand for lace
yarns was quiet. A small share of business was done, and
recent rates may be quoted. The demand for hosiery yarns
was also inactive, and the sales made were at former terms.
Silks remaia at the old prices. As the season advances it is
expected that rates will advance. There was not much de-
mand for brown nets, and prices are without any material
alteration.

no C lID ALE, 1S th .—T here has been more animation in

the flannel market to-day than for some weeks past. A
fair amount of both plain and fancy goods were sold, and
rather more business was also done in Yorkshire goods.
Prices are steady and firm. The wool market was notbrisk,
but prices are well maintained by the dealers. Manufac-
turers buy cautiously, and mostly to supply their immediate
wants only.