The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-05 00:00:00

TEE SOUTHEB,N CONFEDERACY.

(From the Times' Special Correspondent.)
RICHMOND, Oct. 8.
Upon the Ist inst. one of those casualties which
have attracted to the port of Wilmington, the sea
gate of the Confederacy, a degree of notice never
accorded to this insignificant town during all its
previous years of existence, startled this community
almost as much as the explosion of Grant's harm•
less mine at Petersburg two months before. At 3 in
the morning of the let a blockade running steamer,
named the Condor, the property of Mr Alex. Collie,
of London, while attempting to enter the mouth of
the Cape Fear River, had the misfortune, thanks to
her blundering pilot, to run aground on the breakers,
within 200 or 300 yards of the Confederate guns in
Fort Fisher. The Condor was a new three funnelled
stet' neer, superbly adapted for her trade, with great
carrying capacity, drawing only seven feet of water,
and swift as a sea swallow. She was approaching
Wilmington on her first inward trip, and brought
out from Greenock, whence she sailed in August
Let, several English and Confederate passengers,
and among them a lady named Mrs Greenhow, well
known on this continent as having, at the commence-
ment of the war, conducted a spirited correspon-
denee with Mr Seward at Washington, and as hav-
ing been imprisoned by that autocratic attorney.
Mrs Greenhow had passed many months in England
previous to sailing in the Condor, and was returning
to share the increasing perils of her own country.
After the Condor took the ground a Yankee vessel
was seen approaching through the gloom, with a
view to shelling or boarding the stranger. Mrs
Greenhow, remembering her former imprisonment
in Washington, and apprehensive of its repetition,
insisted, against the advice of the captain, on having
a boat lowered, and upon trusting herself to the ten-
der mercies of the waves rather than to those of the
Yankees. Into this heat she carried with her the
mail bags, and Prof. Holcombe, whom the Condor
had picked up at Halifax, and whose name was last
summer brought before the public in connexion with
Mr Greeley's abortive negotiations with a view to
peace, which were entered into at Niagara Falls.
To the pilot, who had just run the Condor aground,
was committed the delicate task of steering Mrs
Greenhow's boat, which was lowered into a raging
surf. Directly the boat left the leeside of the vessel
. she was caught, broadside on, by a huge breaker,
and overturned. All the male passengers succeeded
in clambering up and clutching the keel of the cap-
siied boat, but in the darkness and amid the deaf-
ening thunder of the breakers nothing was seen or
heard of poor Mrs Greenhow. Her body was subs
erquently washed ashore near Fort Fisher, and
close beside it a heavy leather reticlue, containing
2,000 dols in gold, which was believed to have been
slung round her neck when the boat was upset. It
is a strange proof of the strength of that boisterous
sea that such a weighty article as this reticule should
not have sunk, but should have been tossed up on
the beach like a bit of seaweed. Upon the afternoon
of the 2d Mrs Greenhow's body was committed to
the grave at 'Wilmington, according to the rites of
the Roman Catholic Church. A general feeling of
gloom in connexion with the thought of the high
hopes with which Mrs Greenhow returned to her
native land, and of her having been tossed, a life.
less corpse, upon its inhospitable strand, has per-
vaded this community, which at this sad moment
remembers only how zealous and enthusiastic was
her devotion to the Confederacy.
I cannot forbear touching upon another incident
connected with the port at Wilmington. Upon the
night preceding the wreck of the Condor, another
English vessel, named the Night Hawk, ran ashore
within 20 yards of the spot where the Condor was
subsequently stranded. The Yankees, with an au-
dacity which seems (so far as the blockading squad*
ron cif Wilmington is concerned) to be on the ins
crease, sent a boat to board and fire the Night Hawk,
although she lay within canister range of Fort
Fisher. The crew of the Yankee boat could scarcely
have exceeded 25 or 30 men ; there most have been
60 persons on board the Night Hawk, when she tan
eground. Of these, some 20 escaped to land in one
of the boats. Immediately that the Yankees
boarded the unresisting commercial vessel, which
lay wholly at their mercy, they set to work, crying,
"No quarter," slashing upon all sides with their
cutiasees, and firing promiscuously with their re-
T0:V31.9. The two engineers were instantly but-
chered, the chief engineer's head having been
bisected by the stroke of a cutlass, and several
other persons are said to have been wounded by
Pistol shots, The vessel was fired at the stem and
stern, and inasmuch as Fort Fisher gave some signs
of liio by throwing up a rocket, and inasmuch as
there was a rumour of gunpowder on board the
doomed vessel, the Yankees, as cowardly where
there seemed to be danger as they had been ruf-
fianly where there was no resistance, took to their
boat, leaving some half (keen hapless victims on
board the blazing vessel, to be burnt, blown np, or
drowned, as the case might be. Fortunately the
flames, after burning a day and a half, were distin-
guished, chiefly by the agency of the captain and
crew of the Falcon (another of Mr Collie's vessels),
and the boilers and machinery of the Nights Hawk
were uninjured. She will probably, within a few
days cr weeks, issue forth from Wilmington with
her fall cargo of cotton on board. But my object in
mentioning this incident is to ask your readers
whether they are able to discern any difference be-
tween the conduct of the 'Yankee boat crew and that
of the inhuman fiends who man the piratical craft
which issue from the island of Formosa and assail
becalmed and defenceless commercial vessels in the
Chinese seas. I was under the impression that in-
ternational law prescribes that the penalty of running
the blockade is not that those engaged in this trade
should be butchered unresistingly, bat that their
vessels,if captured, should be forfeited to the captors.
But it seems that the Federals, many of whom have
asserted in my hearing that the civilisation of New
York and Boston is equal, if not superior, to that of
Paris and London, think there is no disgrace in
butchering unarmed and unresisting men. There is
little hope that a Government which has shown
such forbearance—it may be wise forbearance, al-
though it is hard to witness the inhumanities of this
war, and to think so—as ours will be aroused even to
the utterance of a feeble remonstrance by such inci-
dents as this; but it is worthy the consideration of
those English captains who engage in the blockade
running trade whether it would not be wise to arm
their crews with muskets and cutlasses, solely with a
view to preventing their vessels being boarded, if
aground, by a handful of Yankees, who, they find
an unarmed crew on board, are likely to emulate the
atrocities of the Chinese buccaneers, and to slash
and slay because there is no more danger from their
victims than Nero anticipated from the files which
he transfixed.
I am happy to report a far more confident feeling
in Richmond than existed at the date of my last
letter. It cannot be denied that when upon the
29:h of September it was discovered in Richmond
that Grant was advancing upon the city with two
army corps One 10th and 18th), and that Lee had
only a handful of troops to resist the Federals, a
feeling closely akin to panic possessed this com-
munity. It is the only instance of panic which, in
coma experience in Richmond, I can recollect. But
the city slowly and sternly recovered itself, and it
is nothing less than justice to an unpopular man
to say that no one in Richmond displayed such
firmness and presence of mind, and developed such
resources at the moment of the greatest menace, as
Gen. Bragg. la many of my previous letters I have
pointed out to your readers the true disadvantages
of Lee's pesition as compared with Grant's. As a
general illustration it may be said that Lee is en
the arc, Grant on the sherd, of a circle ; but as this
expression does not exactly define the position of
the two armies, whose lines (extending each of them
over a length of 3') miles) do not pursue any uni-
form coarse or inclination, I will endeavour, at the
rick of repeating what I have described many times
before, to make my meaning clearer. Your readers
will understand that, in such an attitude as is occu-
pied by the armies of Lee and Grant, the army
which takes the initiative and acts on the aggres-
sive hes an immense advantage. Lee is like a skil-
ful one-armed prize fighter, fighting a big bully
with two arms, stronger, taller, more active, and
keener-sighted than himself. The most tempting
and promising opportunities offer themselves to him

every day. He cannot afford to hazard even 20 live&
in a tentative operation. The fact of his great nume-
rical inferiority to his enemy, and that he it tethered
down and forced to keep always u large portion of
his army before Petersburg, are disadvantages
equivalent to the loss of an arm lehe u prizefighter.
Grant, on the other hand, has, in the eyes of those
who rightly survey the ground, such advantages as
make it astonishing that, in the four months be
tween the 12th June, when he crossed the James
River, and the present time, he should have made
so little use of them. In his centre lies the James
River, with its dozens of Yankee gunboats and
monitors, covering the Federal base of operations,
and making it even unapproachable by General Lee,
It is doubtless with a view to getting still more out
of these monitors that General Butler is attempt-
ing to cut a canal through Dutch Gap, into which he
hopes to tempt the James River. It is not thought
here, I may say par parenthese, that any advantage
will result to Butler's comrades from this canal, even
if, contrary to Federal experience at Vicksburg, it
proves a success. By means of the pontoon bridges
which connect Bermuda Hundred with Deep Bot-
tom, Grant can throw any number of men by night
or day to the north or south of the James. IC is
almost impossible for Lee to know if Grant's des
monstrations, whether they threaten Richmond on
the extreme Federal right, or the South side rail-
road on the extreme Federal left, are feints or
realities. On the other hand, from the configura-
tion of the ground, it is almost impossible for Lee
to cut Grant's extended lines in any vital place. The
most tempting place to assail those lines would be
somewhere not far from the spot where Grant's mine
was sprung. But the shape of the ground and the
position of the forest is such that the lines can only
be attacked at two or three confined spots, and here
naturally Grant has defended himself with triple
tiers of fortifications, and keeps always strong
bodies of men in position. But the greatest of all
advantages is the following :—From the 4th of May
up to the present hour Lee's army has been con-
tinuously in the trenches, either actually under fire
or at any rate not knowing at what moment it might
not be attacked by a savage and multitudinous foe.
The Confederates have been fighting or on the rack
without intermission for more than five months.
On the other hand, the Federal General, who
knew from the beginning that Lee was, through the
paucity of his numbers, restricted to acting on the
defensive, had it in his power at any moment to give
four-fifths of his army an entire rest. There was
nothing to prevent Grant's saying on August 1, " I
shall want great efforts from you on the 20th of this
month ; rest and recruit yourselves until that day."
On the contrary, for 160 days Lee's troops have
known no rest, either by night or day. We all re-
member how the work in the trenches told upon
our officers and privates in the Crimea ; it cannot
be wondered that a far more uninterrupted pressure
for more than five months should have told fear-
fully upon the poor Confederates, exposed to one of
the fiercest summers ever known in Virginia, scans
lily fed upon meat—mostly salt meet—and bread,
without vegetables, with only occasional coffee, with
no other stimulant, and threatened ceaselessly by
overwhelming numbers, who have at their command
all that a lavish profusion of expenditure and the
scientific experience of the whole civilised world can
contribute. I cannot be blind to the fact, as I meet
officers and privates from Gen. Lee's army, that
they are half learn cut, and that, though the spirit
is the same as eve 2, they urgently need rest. lam
in hopes that during the coming winter this rest
will not be denied to them, as Lee's army becomes
stronger ; but bo that as it may, I am convinced,
when the true history of the Confederate campaign
of 1864 in Virginia is written, it will record a
struggle unsurpassed in heroism and in the patience
and self denying endurance of 'the troops since the
time when blood was first spilt upon the earth, and
man first lifted his hand in anger against his bro-
ther. There is one plan by which, at the price cf
the bricks and mortar of Petersburg, General Lee
might curtail the existing peolongation of his lines,
might assume a much stronger defensive position,
and considerably increase the difficulties of his oppo-
nent. That this plan will be adopted if occasion
requires is by no means improbable, but so long as
Gen. Lee feels himself strong enough to hold and
protect Petersburg as well as Richmond ho will cons
tinue to cling to both. If he gave up the town of
Petersburg, and fell back upon the western and
higher bank of the Appomattox, holding the heights
of Pccahontas, which girdle Petersburg on the west
and north, his strength for defence would be much
greater; but he would have in some measure to
give the little city up to its assailants, much in the
same fashion as Fredericksburg was gives up to the
Federals while the Confederates held Marye's
Heights. It has often been argued by wise military
heads that this would be a judicious step, but expe-
rience has shown to what misery the inhabitants of
towns surrendered to the enemy are reduced, and
to this misery Gen. Lee will not consent that Peters-
burg shall be exposed, if he can prevent it. My own
impression is that the success or failure which may
follow Hood's daring move in Georgia (of which I
spoke in my last letter) will govern the operations
of Grant against Richmond. The reciprocity and
mutuality which have always existed between the
various armies of the Federals on the one hand and
of the Confederates on the other, in the East and
\Vest, were never more apparent than at this me.
ment. If the Confederates maintain their present
attitude before Richmond, and continue to hold their
enemy back until, as is here anticipated, a great
disaster has overtaken Sherman in the West, I do
not scruple to say that, in my opinion, Richmond
will laugh its assailants to scorn. IF, on the other
hand, Sherman is able to extricate himself from his
present critical position, by either beating or out-
witting Hood, there will be reason for apprehension
about Richmond during the coming winter the like
of which has never existed before.
Meantime, there is every reason to think that
Grant, electioneering and "pipe-laying" for Mr Lin-
coln after a fashion never dreamt of, will afford us
lively times between this date and the end of the pre-
sent month. There is, in my belief, little reason to
apprehend that Richmond is threatened with immi'
nent and immediate danger. The operations of
General Grant are likely to be of the same guarded
and stealthy character as the approach of the Red
Indian when about to attack the camp of a Western
squatter. It is evident that the main strength of
the Federal forces is concentrated at the two ends
of the Federal lines, or, in other words, at the salient
in the immediate neighbourhood of Chaffin's Bluff,
which was lately taken by the Federals, and which
is called Fort Harrison; and, secondly, at a point
close to the Weldon Railroa'll, which is called Fort
Msßae. Your readers are aware that three sepa-
rate efforts (none of them considerable efforts) have
been made by General Lee to retake Fort Harrison,
, but hitherto without success. It cannot be denied
that the proximity of Fort Harrison to Chaffin's
Bluff (which is to the northern bank of the James
River what Drewry'a Bluff or Fort Darling is to the
southern bank) is an inconvenience to General Lee,
which is likely to be increased when General Grant
has ccmpieted the bombproofs and casements which,
in spite of incessant Confederate shelling, he is said
to be there erecting. But lam assured that Gen.
Lee has in contemplation, or perhaps in course of
execution, a plan of which I can at present say no
more than that it will considerably interfere with
the probably programme of Grant.
On the whole, it is impossible not to take a more
cheerful view of the Confederate prospects in Vir-
ginia than it was proper to entertain at the close
of the last month. At this moment lam ex-
cluding from my mind all thought of the operations
in Georgia, which, with or without reason, are
regarded as likely to exercise great inflaence
taper) tt-e fortunes of Grant. But it must not bc:,
forgotten that all the apprehensions lately enter-
tained about the operations of the Federals through-
out Virginia centre at this instant in the army of
General Grant, It is evident that the valley cam-
paign of General Sheridan is a total failure; and
General Burbridge,
advancing against the Con!'ede-
rate saltworks in South-Western Virginia, has been
utterly defeated by General Echols. Grant is the
supreme hope of the Federals ; with the discomfi-
ture of Grant, whether brought about by an unsuc-
cessful attack of his own or by the hopelessness
which would seize his army it Shcrrnan were routed
in Georgia, falls the stately fabric of Northern

hopes and expectations, No one can doubt that if
Sherman is routed in Georgia, and Grant held im•
potently at bay until Christmas in Virginia, it will
be impossible for Mr Stanton and his myrmidons
to get together such an army as will be adequate to
the commencement of another spring campaign in
1565. The darkest hour of the night is proverbially
that which immediately precedes the dawn; and it
is not, in my judgment, unreasonable to expect that
this hour of gloom through which the Confederates
are now passing—the darkest and profoundest which
I have ever witnessed—is the herald of a day about
to arise with healing on its wings, which will re-
store to this distracted and sorely troubled the
blessings, once so lightly esteemed, of tranquillity
and peace.

OCTOBER 12.
Ia many previous letters I have remarked that a
knowledge of the histoire inedite of the Western
Confederate Army during the last three years is
indispensable to a right understanding of Western
events, and will constitute a key without the pos-
session of which no future historian need attempt
the task of a chronicler. It would require more
space and time than I can at this moment command
to throw full light upon this subject; but in con-
nection therewith I may remark that the true great-
ness and goodness of General Lees character is in
no way made more apparent than by stating the fact
that the army over which he has so long presided
has, comparatively speaking, no secret and mysteri-
ous history of its own, whereas the Western army
reveals a tissue of intrigues, quarrels, self-seekings,
and recriminations which are enough to sicken the
heart of any patriotic man. It is my belief (es I
have often said before) that the Confederate ermy of
the West was originally composed of vastly inferior
material to that which constituted the Confederate
army of the East. Moreover, in regard to the
Federal armies precisely the reverse of this state-
ment is the truth. The best Confederate army (that
of Virginia) was opposed to the worst Federal army
(the Grand Army of the Potomac); the best troops,
on the other hand, that the Federals have sent into
the field were opposed to the Confederate army,
which has successively obeyed Sidney Johnson,
Beauregard, Bragg, Johnston, and Hood, and which
falling from its originally low standard, seems to
have deteriorated step by step as it was tossed sue.
cessively from one commander to another.
It has been the fashion, since the fall of Atlanta
and the disasters which have attached to this luck-
less army under the command of Hood, to assert
that, if the command had been left undisturbed in
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's hands no such disasters
wcu'd have occurred. It is not denied by the parti-
sans of Gen. Johnston that Atlanta would have fallen
in any case, but it is asserted that, after its fall, Gen.
Johnston would have effected marvels. I confess
that I feel myself wholly unable to take this view
of the case. If Johnston had been left in command,
Atlanta would certainly have fallen iu July instead
of falling as it did on Sept. 2. It is difficult to appre-
ciate the value and importance of the six weeks thus
gained by Hood. Those six weeks threw Sherman's
success so far back into the year that no fresh
Western campaign on a grand scale was possible in

1831 for the Yankees. It has been said that it was
a singular and unprecedented fact that, in spite of
Johnson's incessant retreats, his army continued to
place the utmost faith in him, and that it was
never:demeralized. I answer that his army was de-
moralizA, and that because it was demoralized it
took pleasure in and approved the retrograde tactics
of General Johnston. It was easy for it, after it
found that Hood intended to expose it to nothing
but hard kncolo, and that a large party in the
country resented the removal of Johnston, to ex-
claim, "We will not fight under this man; give
us back Johnston." It is my belief that in all his-
tory few commanders have ever assumed the re-
sponsibility of leading an army under more unfa-
vourable and discouraging circumstances than those
which surrounded Hood when put in command in
July last. His army had had its morale insensibly
sapped by the caution and frigidity of his prede-
cessor. It was the general cry of grumblers, of all
who lova to find fault, of all who have a grudge
against President Davie, thLit Johnston was one of
the greatest generals of all time, that hie army
loved and trusted him, and that to separate such a
general from such an army could result in nothing
but disaster to it and to the ecuotry. There is
nothing wonderful in the fact that gn army whose
spirit and morale were low should love a general
like Johnston, who cif little else tt-an fail back,
r.nd whose high reputation for rersonal courage
and for ability shielded bath hirasulf and his army
from any imputations. But I think there are at
this moment few well wishers to the Confederacy
who do not believe (whatever they may have
thought a month ago) that the change from John-
ston to Hood under Beauregard (which is tat pre-
sent the t xaet posilion of afairL-) is a charge for
the2better.

It was scucely to be expected that the dissatis
faction of the general public, and of a large or
tion of the newspaper press, should not find an echo
in the breasts of some of Hood's subordinate gene-
rals.. Hood himself was young, and far inferior iu
military rank to some of these over whose heads he
was put. He was bereft of his right leg and of a
portion of the bone of his left arm, and was, in the
estimation of some, pro tanto inferior to a sound
man. Consequently, there have since he took the
command been bickerings and heartburnings among
officers in high places, which nave added grievous 4
to the demoralisation of the army. It is nut necea..
sary to say more now on this sutject than that ie
my belief Atlanta would never have fallen had every
man in Hood's army, officer end private, striven to
do his whole duty strenuously. It is impossible,
however, now to regret that Atlanta should have
fallen. The indications are that its fall is going to
be one of the greatest blessings to the Confederates
that has occurred since the commencement of the
war, as I will subsequently explain. But in order
to reap these benefits, which seem now to be like
fruit ripe for the pluckirr g, it is necessary that there
should be no such lack of spirit and earnestness as
pervaded portions of Hood's army at the commence-
ment of September, and it is my hope that a new
spirit has now possessed it, for the following reasons.
It must be known to your readers before the ar-
rival of this letter that President Davis had just re-
turned to Richmond, after a visit to Georgia: The
result of his visit is that General Beauregard is put
in command of the whole of the South-west of the
Confederacy on this side of the Mississippi, just as
General Lee is in command of Virginia and North
Carolina. It must be owned that the arduous
task assigned to General Beauregad is " periculosre
plenum opus alt to ;" but my belief is that of all men
in the Confederacy, he is, after General Lee, the
fittest for the place. It is no secret that the con-
tact into which Beauregard has lately been thrown
with Lee has contributed to elevate him greatly in
Lee's estimation. Perhaps the brightest attribute
of Beauregard's military genius is that his views of
campaigns, of strategy, and of large systems of de-
fence are wide, far reaching, and comprehensive. Ho
has benefited by this war in experience and practical
knowledge as much as any distinguished officer who
has been engaged in it, and there is in him no die.
position to intrigue, to work secretly and indirectly
by inspiration of newspapers, or to sin against any
of the axioms prescribed by the code for the guid•
ance of great soldiers in all ages. Moreover, there
attaches to Beauregard, as there attached to Stone-
wall Jackson, a kind of electric popularity, which is
of wonderful value to a general who commands mer-
curial and undisciplined soldiers like these Confe-
derates. His name will be to Good's army a tower
of strength ; the advantage of ceusulting with him
on all etrategicil questions will be greatly prized by
Hood; and I anticipate from the union of 13cau-
regard and Hood as many a ivantagcs as are popu-
larly attributed in the North to the union of Grant
and Meade. But the visit of Mr Davis to Georgia
has elevated the morale of Hood's army in other
ways. He has assigned to Gen. Hardee (on able and
admirable soldier, but indisposed to act under Heed,
to whom, if Hardee had accepted the command of
the Western army offered to him last autumn, he
might now have been giving orders) a separate
command. He has inspirited and invigorated the
entire population of Georgia, indisposed them to
give heed to the factions of which, since the
first days of the Confederacy, the soil of Georgia
has been the scene, and set them heartily to