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

neat day. On the night of the 19th a tower of
strength was 9 dded 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 (hat 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other States was relaxed, or altogether withdrawn ;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
237,32 L 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 Federals 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 o'

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 Cnioamauga 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
I rom 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 au
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 upo❑ 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, wnuld be com-
pelled to attack him when opportunity offered;
and Gen. Leo 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 baffled 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 East 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
County, Tennessee, between the Church and Hols-
ston Rivers, and i❑ a country which yields abun-
dant supplies for all his winter requirements.
There is no indiscretion in 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
those 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 cf
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-
tions 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 Confederate, will
bear a moment's comparison with the trained squa-
drons of Europe, or that as an item of strength i❑
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 coming years
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 citize❑ of modest life
and retiring disposition, but whose local fame,
forced 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
Slajor 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 her 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-
sums 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 to justify 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 Wa'shing-
ton ? 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 'ae has over the State of Ala-
bama? Can he deny that the year closes with marked
evidences of superiority possessed by the Confede-

THE SUN. LONDON, WEDNESDAY' EVENING

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
Federal army has as yet succeeded in getting far
away from its water 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 Danville, in Virginia, united with Queens-
borough, in North Carolina. 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
(ill 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 pedis 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 con-
venient navigable rivers, and in the end the sen-
timent of the large majority of the population re-
mains bitterly hostile to them. All the best and
bravest of the Arkansians are fighting in the field

—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
the exasrerated 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 bath left hath the
cankerworm eaten, and that which the cankerworm
hath left hath 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 of suspected and often unoffending
civilians and women pay the penalty of impu-
ted opinion. In the North, Johnson's Island,
Forts Warren, Lafayette, Dela warre, and APHenry,
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 l' Is 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 tojustify President Lincoln in continuing the
anguish of so large a portion of the human race for
yet another year!