The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-05 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 22.
To engage public attention, wearied with specu-
lating on the inactivity of General Grant, the
Federal Administration has ordered a renewal of
the attacks upon Fort Sumter and the city of
Charleston. No one expects, however, that any result
will ensue except the expenditure of shot and shell,
the loss of a few hundred lives, and the demolition
of portions of Sumter, which the Confederates will
immediately reconstruct. Gen. Grant, it appears,
has been goaded by the late raid of Gen. Early into
Maryland to accomplish something of the same kind,
and has sent forth an expedition under Gen. Sheri-
dan to the south and west of Petersburg and Rich-
mond, charged to do as much mischief as he can to
railroads, bridges, stores, and generally to the farms
and property of the " rebellious" people on his
route. As he will find no troops to oppose his pro-
gress, he will doubtless afford the Northern Govern-
ment and press an opportunity to claim a " set off"
against the late humiliating raid to the gates of
Washington. Statements continue to be made,
though generally upon insufficient and sometimes
very roundabout authority, that Gen. Hunter
whose original retreat from the Shenandoah Valley
opened the door to the invaders, has faced round
again, and recaptured considerable portions of the
Confederate spoils on their way through the moun-
tains ; but beyond the seizure of one laggard convoy
of grain there appears to be no truth in the reports.
It is also asserted, though the Administration are
said to feel no alarm upon the subject, that Gen. Lee
and 50,000 men have left Richmond, and that Wash-
ington is no safer from capture than it was a fort-
night ago, when the invading force might have
seized it as easily as they could have seized a farmer's
house if they had but been aware of their opportu-
nity. Some believe, however, that Gen. Lee—if he
has really left Richmond with so large a force—is
bound for Atlanta, and not for Washington, If so,
Gen. Sherman has found or will speedily find the
great and decisive battlefield which he has traveled
so long a journey from Chattanooga to seek. The
telegrams this morning report that having ens
trenched himself between the Chattahoochie and
Atalanta, he was assailed on Wednesday, the 29th,
by Gen. Johnston in three several onsets, in each of
which the Confederates were repulsed with heavy
loss ; ana that, on the following day, Sherman
made a movement to the left on the railroad to De-
catur, and thus cut off Johnston's communications
with Richmond. If Gen. Lee be not hastening to his
aid, and Johnston's army be as small as reported,
not above a third of that of bherman's, the Confe-
derate position is a critical one; and Johnston must
abandon Atalanta to save his legions, and retreat
upon Macon, without the possession of which by the
Federals their occupation of Atlanta will be but of
little value.
If the Northern public have not, however, been
gratified by this or any other of the long promised
victories that were all to become due about this time
they have been mystified or amused, according to
their capecity or humour, by the publication of a
remarkable correspondence between several Confe-
derate g-ntlemea who had assembled on the free
and sate side of Niagara Falls (the Clifton House,
Canada), Mr Horace Greeley, and the President of

the United States. The Confederate gentlemen,
Messrs. Clay of Alabama, Jacob Thomson of Missis-
sippi, Professor Holcombe of Virginia, and Mr. G.
N. Sanders, styling himself of Dixie, desirous to
stop the effusion of blood, and having a general but
no special mission from the Southern President, laid
their plans to engage Mr Lincoln in a correspond-
ence with them, which, whatever might be his
opinion on the great question of war or peace,
would, if he expressed it, damage him in the estima-
tion either of his own party or of the Democratic
Opposition, if it did not aid in defeating him at the
November election. Casting about for an instru-
ment, chance threw in their way a Mr. Cornell
Jewett, a friend of peace and an acquaintance and
correspondent, if not a friend, of Mr Horace Greeley,
who was rusticating quietly on the American side
of the Cataract, but free to pass to and fro, as the
Confederate agents were not. Mr. Jewett, like a
good patriot and blessed peacemaker, undertook to
open the correspondence with Mr. Greeley, the first
result of which was that Mr. Sanders and his col-

leagues offered to proceed to Washington to debate
on the terms of peace between South and North, if
they could have " complete and unqualified protec.
tion" from the President and the Secretary of War
on the way to and from the capital, and during their
stay. Mr, Greeley replied five days afterwards,
having consulted the President in the interval, and
stated that, " if they were duly accredited from
Richmond es the bearers of propositions for peace,"
he was authorised by the President to tender them
safe conduct on the journey, and that he himself

would accompany them at the earliest moment tha
would be agreeable to them. The Confederate de.

legation, having no bpecial mission, replied on the
following day—the 18th of July—that they were
not accredited as bearers of propositions for peace,
but were in the confidential employment of the
Confederate Government, were entirely familiar
with its wishes and opinions, and that if the corre-

spondence that bad already taken pace could be
made known at Richmond they would at once be
clothed with the full powers which Mr. Lincoln
seemed to imagine they already possessed, Mr.
Greeley, non piussed at this turn of affairs, tele-

graphed to Washington for further instructions.

Mr. Lincoln sent them on the 19th by his private
secretary, Major Hay, who on arrival at Niagara on
the 20th handed to Mr. Greeley for transmission to
the Confederate agents the following letter, which
will, no doubt, take a conspicuous place in the his-
tory of the time :

"Executive Mansion, Washington, July 18, 1864.
"To whom it may concern—
" Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace,
the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of

slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that
can control the armies now at war against the United States,
will be received and considered by the Executive Govern-
ment of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms
on substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers
thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.

"ABRAHAM LT,NcoLx."
In other words, 'Arr. Lincoln declined the nego-
tiation, even if the emissaries were duly accredited
to him by Mr. Jefferson Davis, unless upon such
terms as he knew it was impossible for the Confede-
rate Government to accept—terms, moreover, that
are not warranted by the Constitution which leaves
to the separate States of the Union, in their local
self-government, the sole right of abolishing slavery.
He has thus declared that while he is President there

shall not be peace, except by the utter subjugation or
unqualified submission of the South. He has thrown

over all his old scruples on the slavery question--
that awful question which in Louisiana has resolved
itself into the virtual re.enslavement of the freed

negroes as a better alternative for that unhappy race
than idleness, pauperism, disease, and death; de-
clared authoritatively, for the first time, that the Con-
stitution of the United States was as dead and de-
funct as George Washington, and that he (Mr. Lin-
coln) was the sole successor to its authority. The wily
Confederates gained their point. They set a trap
for the bird and caught it with unexpected celerity.
Mr. Lincoln's thoughts and those of the public

travel in different ways. Other men's wishes may
incline to peace, but not those of the President.
The majority of the pe-pte may yearn for the recto•
ration of the Union under which they flourished as
no nation ever flourished before, but Mr. Lincoln
will have no Union that is not accompanied by the
compulsory emancipation of an helpless and igno-
rant people, though he knows full well that eman■
cipation in the North, of which the North is now
so proud, was neither sudden nor compulsory, nor
due in any shape or degree to the action of the
Federal Government, but wholly to the force of
public opinion in the several States acting upon the
Legislature, which dealt with the subject in the
cautions and tentative manner which its vast im-
portance demanded.
But, although Mr. Lincoln has thus taken his
stand in favour of a revolution which shall consoli-
date the Union by force of arms, and by abrogation
of the social compact which alone held the States
together, and which forms the only legal bond of
cohesion between New York, Pennsylvania, and
New England, at this moment the indications of the
progress of the peace party are so meny, and come
from such different and such unconnected quarters,
that it is impossible to misinterpret them. The
Democrats, who, up to the murderous failures of
General Grant's present campaign, were loud in
their cries for the vigorous prosecution of the war,
but still louder in their denunciation of all the pos•
sible means by which their alleged purpose could
be carried into effect, have become peaceful and con-
sistent, They have veered round to the opinions
of the other and more logical section of their party,
who hold that the war is not only unfortunate
in conduct, but wrong in principle, and that it
never can restore the Union, which is still the
object of so much love and so many hopes.
Even the Republicans are divided in sentiment,
although Mr. Lincoln's letter " to all whom it may
concern," may strengthen the adhesion to his
cause of the Abolitionist branch of the party. His
call for 500,000 men to carry on the war for another
twelvemonth has disabused most people of the idea
that the South could be reduced to obedience within
the limits which they believed practicable when
Grant crossed the Rapidan, and Sherman began hie
march to Atlanta. Rather suffer hostilities to drag
on for another Presidential term, see the debt accu-
mulate at the rate of a thousand millions per annum,
and the flower of the youth and manhood of 20
once prosperous and happy States driven to the
shambles of Virginia, under such adepts at slaughter
as General Grant, they are ready to submit at the
11th hour to that constitutional mode of meeting
the difficulty which ought to have been adopted at
the first—namely, a general convention of the peo-
ple of North and South to decide whether Union
be either practicable or desirable. The Chicago
Convention, which is to meet in September, will
show what form and magnitude this idea has
assumed. Out of 48 delegates already elected to
that body only 6 are known to be for the prosecu-
tion of the war, without a preliminary offer to the
South of terms of peace; while the remaining 42
are for an armistice and a general Convention, which
shall either make a more perfect Union or consent
to a separation without further bloodshed. By the
time the delegates meet at Chicago a candidate for
the Presidency will be found to stand upon this
" platform." In the meanwhile every defeat of the
Northern armies in the field, every humiliation of
the Government at Washington, every attempt to
enforce the conscription, every rise in the premium
on gold, and increase i❑ the price of the necessaries
of life, will give this growing party new power over
the sympathies of the multitude and diminish the
chances of Mr Lincoln's election. The manifesto of a
large section of the Democratic members of the lower
House, drawn up by Mr Buckalew, of Pennsylvania,
and signed by him and 42 other representatives of
the people, as a bid for peace, which though it does
not in terms admit that the rupture between South
and North is final, clearly foreshadows .he ultimate
acceptance of that issue by the signers, if a general
conventio❑ of the people should fail to agree to a
reconstruction. A similar, though more forcibly
worded, appeal of the Central Committee of the
German democracy, promulgated yesterday, points
the same way, declares that the war cannot last for
ever, that it may go on for years, until both parties
are exhausted, when foreign Powers will intervene
and compel peace on conditions that might not be
so palatable to either as if the peace was of their
own seeking; and calls upon the North as the
stronger party to make the first movement towards
reconciliation. The Roman Catholic hierarchy are
all for peace, and it is probable that the Irish peace
party (it sounds like a misnomer) will, in view o

the draught and the debt, the taxation and the high
prices, follow the lead of their spiritual advisers,
and declare themselves as the German democracy
have dcne in favour of the cessation of bloodshed.

Several candidates are spoken of as the nominees o

Chicago—among others, Governor Horatio Seymour
of Connecticut, whose name would be a tower of
strength, Mr. Vallandigam, Senator Welt of New
Jersey, one of the ablest writers, lawyers, and
statesman of the party, and General M'Clellan.

Were the last-named to adopt the platform, and
to declare for " Union," if Union were piesible,
without further bloodshed—but with or without

Union to insist upon " Liberty "—it is probable
that all other candidates would yield to his su•
perior popularity, and that the United Democrats,
with his name to represent their cause,would achieve
an easy victory over the disunited Republicans,
scattering their votes between Mr. Lincoln and
General Fremont, if not between those two gentle-
men and Mr. Chase. General M'Clellan is prudent.
He makes the first step secure before he takes the

second; and has not committed himself so greatly
on the question of the vigorous prosecution of the
war as not to be able to adopt the policy of a
vigorous prosecution of peace, sLould he finally con
sent to become the nominee of what promises to be
the great majority of the Democratic party. Europe
need not, and perhaps will nor, be surprised if the

best soldier of the North should ultimately become

the champion of peat•, allowing the South the inde-
pendence which it is suicidal as well as useless to

dispute, and drawing his sword, if he have occasio❑
to draw it at all, in defence of those principles of
Republican liberty which found their embodiment

in Ulu) violated Constitution of the United States.
The task may be difficult, but not even a soldier
can deny that it will be glorious.
The now draught is very unpopular, and would
be dangerously so if any largo bodies of the working
classes beliuvcd that it would ever be enforced. The
philosophic, religious, and (it may be added, ©s far

as this war is concerned, the) bloodthirsty State o,

Massachusetts, despairing of raising her quota at

home, has addressed a mission to the Border and

,uch Southern States as are held by Federal troops
to enlist the runaway and freed Legroes to serve
instead of such white men of Massachusetts as are

willing to pay, but obstinately unwilling to fight.
New York is about to imitate her example, though
the Governor declines to recommend it, and, as it is

generally admitted that the negroes, if well led,
make brave soldiers, it is likely, if the funds be

forthcoming to pay the bounties, that 30,000 or 40,000

black recruits may be placed at the service of Mr.

Lincoln before the winter, even without any positive
enforcement of the draught. Whatever may be
said or thought in the outer world of the decency
or the humanity of Americans who hire negroes to
do the work of battle, which they are too busy, too
indisposed, or too lukewarm in the cause to do fur
themselves, there is one favourable circumstance

connected with the new draught which merits and
will receive unqualified approval. The Provost-

Marshal General (Mr Fry), i❑ his instructions and

regulations to all concerned about the measure, ex.

pressly declares that "no premiums whatever for

:he procuration of recruits will hereafter be paid by
;he United States.' This will put a stop to the

crimping system, and ruin the trade of the mer-
cenary scoundrels who go to Ireland, ostensibly to
procure railway labourers, but in reality to enlist

soldiers—for whom they wore up to this time paid

by the Federal Government at the rate of 20 dole

a head. It will also spoil,the business of the enter-
prising travellers on board of emigrant ships, British

or American, who relieve the tedium of the Atlantic
passage by inducing their companions to enrol

themselves among the brave defenders " of the best

Government that ever existed on the flee of the

earth," and to fight for a cause of which, for the