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

the indications appear to be that unless Grant is
forced to fall back because of the movements of
Longstreet, Bragg will eventually lose I ookout
Mountain, and will have to fall back towards At-
lanta, probably to a place called Tunnel-hill.
I must not omit to mention that Charleston, al-
though battered and tormented by its indefatigable
assailants, is regarded as so little at present in
danger as to have ceased to attract all notice or at-
tention. The accompanying narrative, furnished
to me by an English officer now at Charleston, and
extracted from a letter bearing date the 16th inst.,
will give your readers a more lifelike idea of Fort
Sumter than anything which I could myself
write

"I went yesterday evening (the 15th) to Fort Sumter.
It was a most interesting expedition- The Federals use a
powerful calcium light at Battery Gregg, with which they
illuminate Sumter to such a degree that it is impossible for

steamers to go up to the wharf at night as they used to go,
and we had to land in row boats. They were shelling very
rapidly, and it became most exciting when we neared the
fort, especially when we came into the glare of the calcium
light, and they could see us. No accident befel us, how-

ever, as went we in, and once inside the place, and in the
bombproofs, we were perfectly safe. The bombprooofs are
_ _

Lofty and spacious, and well ventilated. The last bombard

ment has not injured them in the slightest degree; indeed,
they are, if anything, really stronger than before, from the

amount of the debris knocked down upon them, Major
Elliot, the commandant, was kind enough to take me out
into the area and on to the parapet, to show me the effects

of the bombardment—a courtesy, by-the-by, which con-
sidering the lively way in which shells were flying about
us, was indicative of very genuine politeness. We had not
been halt a minute in the area when one of the lookouts
got his jaw broken with a bit of shell, and we had hardly
got back when another poor fellow was brought in with

two-thirds of his head knocked off, Under the circum-
stances, we did not stay long ; still, I had time enough to
take a good look round and see all I wished. The place is

undoubtedly very much injured; indeed, it is hardly pos-
sible to do the walls any further damage. The sea front is
almost entirely knocked into the area, and you can now
walk up from the area to the top of the walls which once
faced the sea. The wall which they battered so in August
is now the best one left; it retains pretty well its original
height. It is the part of the building which originally

contained the officers' quarters, and was made pretty solid
between April and August by filling up every vacuum with
sand. The side towards the city has also, comparatively,
suffered little. The casualties in the fort are seldom heavy,
and arise from the men exposing themselves carelessly. The
sentinels, most of whom have to be posted at night, have
mostly a shelter into which they can dodge when they see
a shell coming. The men are very anxious that the Federals
elviuld try another assault. On our return from the fort
we were again pelted with all kinds of missiles, even with
grape this time and one of our boatmen got hit in the
hand, and another in the back, though very slightly. You
must not suppose that the Federals are always so attentive
to visitors calling at Fort Sumter; it was only my particular

Luck that they should be so on the night in quefaion."

Nov. 28.
In my recent letters regarding the battle of
Chicimauga, it will have been observed that I have
not been able to refrain from severe censure of Gen.
Bragg for his failure to improve the great opportu-
nity of the war, and for once to realise a crowning
victory. I have ao disposition to expect impossi-
bilities from Generals, to clamour lightly for their
removal, to overlook the amazing difficulties which
surround them, and which are such as to make this
war and its incidents impossible of comprehension
to an European observer ; nor do I count upon ail
but unchecked success for the party with which,
after 14 months' residence in Seceesia, it cannot but
be that my sympathies are enlisted. Furthermore,
it is nothing more than justice to President Davis
to acknowledge his judicious disinclination to emu-
late the example of his antagonists, and his wise
dislike to frequent changes of his Generals. There
are, moreover, special reasons which commend
General Bragg to the favourable consideration of
all thoughtful men—such as his personal purity of
character, his lofty indifference to popularity, his
disrespect of persons, his indomitable self-reliance
in bringing every. man in his command, whether
general officer or private to book, if guilty of any
military delinquincy. Nor can any one be blind to
the fact that it is a matter of no slight perplexity
and difficulty to find a successor to Gen. Bragg. At

❑o moment since the commencement of the war has

there been such pressing and urgont need for that
strange and earnest enthusiast who alone among
their Generals has ever stirred to its lowest depths
the whole heart of the Confederate people, and
whose grave I lately saw " larded with sweet
flowers" at Lexington, in the bosom of the beautiful
valley of Virginia. But if at this moment no Stone-
wall Jackscn be found to answer to his country's
call, there are left to us, i❑ addition to Gen. Lee, at

least two or three Generals whose influence at the
head of Gen. Bragg's army would at this moment
be stirring and electric. With Gen. Bragg in com-
mend there will never, I fear, be enthusiasm in his
troops, and without enthusiasm battles cannot be
fought and won against largely superior numbers
and in the teeth of the immense advantages in abun-
dance of supply, facility of transportation, and
quality of war material possessed by the Federals.
These criticisms upon Gen. Bragg gather force and
point from the condition of affairs as they now stand
near Chattanooga, compared with their condition on
the night of Sept. 20 and for several days afterwards.
It is urged by the defenders and advocates of Gen.
Bragg that no battle since the commencement of
the war has produced greater results than the
battle of Chicamauga. It has compelled the Fede..
rals to scrape together troops from every wind
under Heaven, to abandon other enterprises, and
to relax their grip upon many material guarantees
which they had secured. It has relieved the ribs of
the States of Mississippi and Louisiana from the
pressure and molestation to which their length
of boundary, stretching for hundreds of
miles along the Father of Waters, exposed
them. It has protected Mobile and the State of
Alabama, Atlanta, and the State of Georgia. It has
given a new aspect to Confederate affairs in Europe,
which was incredulous as to the possibility of fur-
ther Confederate resistance, and blinded and gulled
by the ceaseless and unchecked inpouring of Yankee
mendacity. It has paralysed Federal activity in
the trans-Mississippi Department, and forces the
Washington Cabinet to turn a deaf ear to General
Banks's earnest solicitations for reinforcements to
enable him to retain his grasp upon the Rio Grande,
in opposition to the whole State of Texas, which
seems about to turn on him in earnest. It has
weakened General Meade, and depleted his force ;
it has decapitated General Rosen cranz, whom many
persons north and south (and. among them General
Bragg) regard as the greatest captain whom the
Federals have ever followed. All this it has done ;
bat the consciousness how much more, if rightly
fructified, it might have done saddens many a heart
when to the long list of " lost opportunities" which
have signalised this war is added, in spite of all
that it has done, the name of the Battle of Chica-
mange.
From east, from west, from north Federal rein-
forcements have poured into Chattanooga—Hooker
from the army of Virginia ; Sherman from the
army which took Vicksburg ; Grant, in possess-
sion of the supreme command, with rakings from
Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and from across the
Mississippi; and yet I have, the best reasons for
stating that Grant's entire army when it commenced
its recent operations against Bragg did not number
85,000 men. Before I leave finally and for ever the
subject of the battle of Chickamauga and its com-
parative fruitlessness, let me ask the reader to con-
sider what would have been this day the condition
of the Federals if, on the night of the 20th of Sep-
tember, the Federal army which fought the battle
of Chickamauga had lost out of its entire force
of 60,000 men not one-third (which was the actual
loss), but three-fourths This, I fearlessly assert,
might have been the result attained, without risk
or the possibi ity of discomfiture. I again repeat
that nothing like the Federal disorganisation and
panic has been seen since Ball Run. For the failure
to attain this result I cannot see that any other per-
son is censurable than General Bragg ; nor can I
see that his plans since the end of September np to
the present week have been marked by sagacity.
There can ho very little question that Longstrect's
operations against Knoxville would have been es-
sayed under vastly better auspices it they had been
commenced immediately after Chicamauga. Again,
it seems to me to have been useless for Bragg, when
he had lost Racoon Mountain and Lookout Valley,
to strive to retain possession of Lookout Mountain,
which was of little use when the possession by the
Federals of Racoon Mountain enabled Grant to
transport supplies from Bridgeport to a point within

two miles and a half of Chattanooga. Ever since the
capture by General Hooker of Racoon Mountain, the
Federals have had to waggon their supplies over
two and a half miles of road, whereas Bragg's sup-

plies have had from seven to nine miles to traverse,
and roads which for badness were never surpassed
on earth. After he sent Longstreet off to Knoxville,
and still more when he sent two divisions of his
army away to support and reinforce Longstreet, it
was surely the height of rashness to hold the lines

'rom Lookout Mountain on the extreme left to Chica-

mauga Creek on the extreme right, which had so
long been held by nearly 70,000 Confederates, with

a force of not more than 35,000 bayonets. The ex-
treme length and weakness of General Bragg's line

when it was attacked by Grant on the 23d, 24th,
and 25th inst., explains the fact which presents the
only serious feature for the Confederates in con-
nexion with the recent successes of the Federals
before Chattanooga—the fact that for the first time
in this war the Confederates, when behind breast-

works and acting on the defensive, have been driven
out and grievously discomfited by their opponents.
The week which ends this day has been the period
of most restless and feverish anxiety to which,
during the last 14 months, the Confederate States
and their umbilicus, the city of Richmond, have ever
been subjected. It is known and felt that if winter

checks the war without great strides having been

made by the Federals, it is idle to talk of the

Washington Cabinet being able to get such an army

into the field next spring as will have the remotest
chance of prevailing against Southern resistance.
With eyes of irrepressible anxiety Ithe telegrams
from Bragg and from Lee have been scanned, and
to-morrow, for the fiftieth time, we are told that the
week is to commence ,which will be the supreme

crisis of the Confederacy. No thoughtful or im-
partial reader in England will for a moment be
taken in by such like assertions. If it ba possible
that the armies of Lee and Bragg can be driven
from the open field, and that Atlanta and Richmond
should fall into Federal hands, the filet stage of the
war will merely be completed. President Lincoln

will fed himself face to face with nine or ten

Polands. The military problem now fiercely d -
bated between the two sections would yield to the
political, which none can pretend to deny presents
features of vastly deeper gravity and ever-increasing
difficulty of solution.

Before these words have been read by the English
public the history of the momentous week which
will extend from the 29th of November to the 6th
of December will be, to Englishmen, like a tale
that is told. The correspondent situated as lam is
under the disadvantage of feeling that his prophe-
cies about coming events will not even for a mo-
ment enlighten the public mind which he is address-
ing, and enable it by anticipation to judge more
correctly of the shadows which those coming events

are wont to cast. Prophecy end event will be read
simultaneously in England; it is even possible, such
is the uncertainty attending a correspondence con-
ducted within the cordon of a blockade, that this
letter may be so long delayed en route as to have
divested both prophecy and event of every grain of
interest which they once possessed. It cannot for a
moment be denied that the coincidence of momen-
tous collisions between the four great armies of this
continent within the same week invests the present
hour with strange and tragic interest. Nor is it
possible to exaggerate the magnitude of the danger
with which General Bragg and his army are
threatened. Your readers will not require to be
told that the deterioration in the morale and
spirit of Bragg's army, which in a former letter I
described as having been actively at work since the
battle of Alurfreesborough, has rapidly increased
since the battle of Chicamauga. The dissatisfaction
of his generals at the fruitlessness of a battle which
put 15,000 Confederates hors de combat—the loud-
mouthed discussions of General Bragg's incompe-
tency in three-fourths of the Confederate journals
—the estrangement which has openly existed be-
tween General Bragg on the one side, and Generals
Polk, Buckner, Hindman, Cheetham, D. H. Hill,
and Forrest on the other—the known absence of
harmony between General Bragg and his right arm,
General Longstrcet, suppressed and kept out of
sight though it has been by the patriotism and
military subordination of the latter—have conspired
to daunt and dispirit and leaven the whole mass of
Bragg's rank and file, until it became a moral cer-
tainty that the first serious collision between Grant
and Bragg could result only in disaster to the latter,
This collision, which I do not believe would have
occurred this year had not Bragg sent Longstrcet
off to Knoxville, was precipitated by this hazardous
step. lam not able to speak confidently as yet on
the subject of the full extent of the disaster which
has overtaken the Confederate arms in Northern
Georgia. That it is very serious cannot be questioned.
The great problem which awaits solution during the
coming week is whether Grant, whose energy and
audacity surpass those of any Federal general
thrown es yet to the surface by this war, will be able
to wipe Bragg's army entirely out, and to break it
up without hand. If Bragg can form a new line
either at Ringold, at Dalton, or at Tunnel-hill, and
can hold it during the next two weeks, Atlanta will
in that case be safe. If he is pursued by Grant with
the latter's usual and characteristic energy; if the
Federals are not mired in the spongy glutinous
slime which hedges in Chickamauga Creek, and
stretches for miles along both its banks, it seems to
me scarcely doubtful that Atlanta is in alarming
jeopardy. On the other hand, a fortnight's delay is
all that is wanted to secure safety for Bragg's army,
and to tide over the winter. Behind him lies the
great State of Georgia, the New England of the Con-
federacy, the soil of which is now trodden and
seriously menaced by the Yankee invader, and there
is no manner of doubt that Georgia will at once
throw her every man into the field with a view to
supporting Bragg, and will busy herself frantically
during the winter in utilising the resources which
58,000 square miles of area, a population in 1860 of
nearly 1,100,000 souls, and an estimated valuation of
645,895,237 dols., conspire to give her. There will
arise from these reverses the compensation which
the Confederacy has hitherto never failed in similar
perils to find; nor was it without deep significance
that, alluding to the recuperative energy she has
hitherto shown, it was proposed that
" Non Hydra recto corpore flrmior
Vinci dolentem crevit in Herculem"

should, when a motto was being sought for her
public seal, be the motto of her choice.
But, in the meantime, what is likely to be the
fate of General Longstreet, cut off from communi-
cation with Bragg, isolated at a distance of 110 miles
from Chattanooga, and held at bay by terrible for-
tifications from " shutting down" upon his foe P
Apparently, Burnside's fate involves a fine race be-
tween starvation and General Grant. Upon the
25th inst., the very same day upon which Bragg's
army was driven headlong from Missionary Ridge,
we know that Longstreet had Burnside hemmed in
on every'side, that he was shelling Knoxville and the
Federal positions heavily, and it was believed that
the Federal supplies were very scanty. Furthermore
it is known that strong reinforcements have left
Grant's army at Chattanooga, and unless Longstreet
can complete his work quickly he will probably be
compelled to raise the siege of Knoxville. Thereis not
much anxiety in regard to the safety of Longetreet's
army, which, if robbed of its prey, can escape with-
out molestation into Western Virginia. Bat the
hopeful feature in Longstreet's horizon is that
Bragg, knowing that Grant had sent reinforcements
to Burnside., detached two divisions from his army
to help Longstreet, which will probably obstruct
and delay the rapid advance of Grant's relieving
force. It is an exciting episode which is being
enacted around Knoxville in the drama of the
war. Upon the success or failure of Long-
street will hinge the possession or forfeitare
by the Confederates of those important mountain
passes..in istern 'Tennessee which are the keys to
the four States of Virginia, Georgia, North Caro-
lina, end Tenneseee. His capture of Burnside and
the Federal force in Knoxville will do much to
bring about a resumption of the exchange of pri-
soners, concerning which such a war of words has
raged between Commissioners Meredith and ()tild—
e war in which it is hard not to agree with the New
York IVorld, that the advantage has been gained by
the Confederate Commissioner, In a future letter I
hope to give to your readers full details of the con-
dition of the Federal piieeeere in the Libby Prison.

For the presentl will merely say that the grossest
exaggeration his characterised the representations
of the Northern journals in regard to the treat-
ment which northern prisoners have met with.
To say that their rations have not been so
abundant as those issued to them when they
were Federal soldiers is nothing more nor less
than to say tiat the Confederate army puts up
with fare which the Federals—fighting for pay, and
not for princple—would not tolerate for a week.
That the Federal prisoners fare better than the
Confederate soldiers I am abundantly satisfied from
what I have learnt. That there is great suffering
among the Confederate prisoners in the North is
still more abundantly evident from the deluge of
letters flooding the Richmond papers every morn-
ing ; and the inference which may safely be drawn
is that the condition of a prisoner in the hand either
of Federal or Confederate authorities is very far
from being os a bed of roses ; but while the Federal
journals, possessing the ear of lurope, denounce in
the name of outraged humanity the atrocities of the
Libby Prison,the Confederate journals, which daily
exhibit the horrors of Fort Delaware, are powerless
to make their voice heard beyond the walls of
Richmond, and leave to their enemy the advantage
which he has possessed from the beginning in his
unchecked and irresponsible access to the ear of
Europe.
In conclusion, reviewing the situation at this mo-
ment of the Confederate States, I cannot but be of
opinion, that President Davis, by his well-inten-
tioned, though ill-judging, obstinacy in adhering to
his friend Gen, Bragg, has done more to shake the
stability of his hold upon the affections and confi-
dence of the Confederate people thaa by any other
act which has signalised his two and half years of
troubled and agitated power. It would seem that
Mr. Davis has failed to discern that the compe-
tency of a General, like the virtue of a woman, can-
not afford to be discussed in public. The very fact
of the discussion by his soldiers of their General's
competency adds most alarmingly to his incompe-
tency, and no one can have watched Gen. Bragg's
army for the last two months without noticing the
fearful deterioration to which its want of faith in
its head has visibly subjected it. War in a re-
publican country, with' a daily press which is
its interpreter, and which is read by every soldier
that conducts it, is very different from the
wars of Marlborough or Napoleon, and so Mr.
Davis has long ago discovered. It is greatly to his
honour and credit that he has not emulated Mr
Lincoln's example and imposed upon the journals
which surround him a decorum of criticism and
comment which is, indeed, strange and exotic upon
American soil. But a defiance of an almost unani-
mous ;public opinion, for which, in reference to
General Bragg, Mr. Davis is responsible, even as-
suming that public opinion was wrong and Mr. Davis
right, is, to say the least, an error. May it not be
converted by persistence in it from an error into an
irreparable calamity, and may there be truth in the
rumour which circulates through the feverish streets
to-day to the effect that General Hardee is about to
assume the command from which General Bragg by
ransgression fell!

DEC. 1.
I have an opportunity of adding a postscript to
my letter, although three additional days have done
little to throw further light upon the situation. In
Virginia the two antagonistic armies face each
other, and have faced each other for three days

past, divided only by a narrow stream called Mine
~. . . . .

Creek, which runs into the Rapidan river from the

south a few miles west of the junction
,of that river
with the Rappahanock. But I should not omit to

explain to the reader that the position occupied by
the two armies at the battle of Chaneelloraville,

which was fought in the immediate neighbourhood

of their present camping ground, was precisely the
reverse of their actual position at this moment.
General Meade and the Federals face westward,

and have their backs turned on Fredericksburg
and the old battlefield of Chancellorsville ; General

Lee and his army face eastward, with their
backs to the Blue Ridge. There appears on
both sides a disinclination to attack, which does
not seem to me wise policy on the part of the
Federal General. For three or four days heavy
reinfOrcements have been going forward to General.
Lee from Richmond, and if Meade had fought on
the 29:11 his superiority in numbers, which is likely
to be great whenever the battle comes off, would
have been very much greater. On the night of

Sunday the 29th I witnessed the departure from
Richmond of a large portion of Pickett's division—

be same division which was so roughly handled a

Gettysburg—and which, it might be supposed, had
good ground for weary distaste of the war. The
Englishman introduced for the first time into the
Confederacy, and unfamiliar with such scenes,
might have fancied that the excited, enthusiastic,
shouting, jubilant troops were advancing to their
maiden battlefield, inexperienced in the dire horrors
of the bloodiest combats which this century has
known, and intoxicated with the animal joy which
heralds the dreadful revelry of a soldier's first
battle. I could not but contrast their exhilira-

tin with the stolid dulness and depression which
were perceptible almost universally among Gene-
ral Bragg's troops ; nor could I fail to do homage to
the character and influence of Lee and " Stonewall"
Jackson, which has stamped and moulded the rank
and file which upon Virginian soil have been only
familiar with victory, and which neither in Penn-
sylvania nor 11Iaryland have ever known defeat. It
was difficult to have any other opinion than that
the seventh " On to Richmond" which is now being
eassayed by Meade, would share the same fate as its
sts predecessors, and that Bull Run, Bethel, Drury's
Bluff, M'Clellan's battles round Richmond, Fre-
dericksburg, and Chancelloraville would culminate
in the coming strife of Mine Creek.

And yet there is reason to pause and dread the
battle which seems to be now imminent more than
any of-its forerunners. For the first time Lae fights
without either Jackson or Longatreet by his side.
The Federals, on the other hand, I confidently anti-
cipate, will fight better than they ever fought be
fore. Without an atom of military genius, Meade
understands the value of the secret which seems to
have been known to M'Clellan alone among the
Federal Generals in Virginia—the secret of massing
the troops and keeping them close together, never
manoeuvring in face of his enemy. Lee will fight in
the ratio of two men against three. At Chancellors-
ville he fought in the ratio of three men against
eight. But it is not any want of confidence in the
army of General Lee which shakes
my faith. It
the Confederate horizon is at this moment overcast,
it is not because Confederate troops are less valiant
than of yore, but because the Confederate people are
more corrupt. It is difficult not to curl the lip when
the grasping, money-grubbing, mercenary spirit
of the Yankee is denounced in an atmosphere
reeking with speculation more feverish and eager
than any that Wall-street exhibits. Go this day
to the great auction sale of blockade-running goods
exhibited by Messrs Kent and Paine, in the prin-
cipal street of Richmond, take note of the army of
young and ablebodied men who might, if they were
men and not sharks, swell Lee's host to 100,000
bayonets, and who are engaged in scrambling over
each others' backs to buy silks and mnslins, and to
invest some of the Confederate notes which they
have in two years and a half of unscrupulous greed
amassed in materials and fabrics which, whether the
Confederates sink or swim, must still command gold.
What may still be in store for this agonised and sorely
tried continent it is mare difficult to say that when
the thunder of the first gun which initiated the
greatest revolutionary war of history reverberated
around the walls of Fort Sumter and died away on
the startled ear; but if on the 7th of this current
month the Confederate Congress, which assembles
to hold counsel upon matters of as grave debate as
were 'ever submitted to deliberative body, and
which, it must be owned, has hitherto shown little
grasp, or earnestness, or capacity, fails to rise to
the height of the great argument before it, then
may be expected such misery as upon earth has
never yet been known—the extension over the
whole area of Secessia of the bloody border war-
fare of Missouri and Kansas—a cessation of the
pure and mild sway of General Lee and his imita-
tors, and an ascent to th© surface of Quantrell,
M'Niell, Parson Brownluw, and others of the saute
brood—the dispersion all over the Slave States of at
least 200,000 border ruffians or guezillas, more