The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-26 00:00:00

THE CIV.

:ERICA.

- (From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW Yonx, Dec. 13.
The capture of Atlanta by General Sherman on
the Ist of September is the pivot upon which have
turned all the political and nearly all the military
events that have since occurred. -Worthless as the
victory was to the Federal cause, it accomplished
several important objects : it made an end of the
Chicago platform; it consigned the fast increasing
Peace Party to unpopularity, if not to odium ; it
defeated Gen. M•Clellan, and with him the great
Conservative party of the Democracy, which it
threw back into all bat hopeless opposition; it
triumphantly re-elected Mr. Lincoln and strength.
ened in its position the revolutionary party that has
for four years moulded the President to its will,
and obliterated one by one the landmarks of the
Constitution. Its military results have been quite
as striking, and transferred the main interest of the
war to a new and unexpected quarter. Usable to
hold Atlanta after he had played rather than fought
General Hood out of it, in imminent danger of
being exterminated or forced to capitulate by the
movement inaugurated in his rear, Sherman, the
most fertile in resources of all the Northern Generals,
endeavoured to convert his virtual discomfiture into
a triumph, and resolved to dash through Georgia to
the sea, The whole aspect of the war was conse-
quently changed. Gen. Grant—having knocked
his head nine, if not ten, times against the defences
of Richmond and Petersburg, and greatly hurt him-
self at each blow, though he never confessed the
damage, and was always strong enough to butt
again—lay quietly by awhile to watch the results
of the daring strategy of his ablest lieutenant. He
has had to watch for 29 days, during which time
his knowledge of Sherman's progress, his defeats,
his triumphs, his gains, his losses, and his deniesa
tions, have been derived from Southern newspapers
only. As time made it apparent that Sherman, if
he made his way to the sea at all, would
be driven to the southward of Savannah, in close
proximity to the city, Gen. Grant took measures to
prevent assistance being despatched from Charles.
ton, and under his orders General Foster and Ad-
miral Dahlgren undertook an expedition from the
coast with the object of cutting the Charleston and
Savannah Railway at Pocataglio. It is alleged by
the Southern journals that in this attempt the Fe.
derals were defeated, with severe loss. The Northern
journals, on the contrary, while admitting a first
and serious repulse of their forces, assert that they
ultimately succeeded in destroying the bridge at
Pocataglio, and so severing the communication be•
tween the two cities. Whatever the truth may be,
General Grant was not idle in another direction.
To occupy the attention of General Lee, and pre-
vent him from despatching any aid to General Beau•
regard in Georgia, he made a new flank movement
on Saturday last against the Petersburg and Weldon
Railroad, with the intention, it is assumed, of cap
turing Weldon and holding it. The results are not
known, though there have been rumours in town
yesterday and today, untraceable to any authentic
source, though believed by operators in Wall-street
—that in this—his tenth or eleventh movement
against the enemy since he crossed the Rapidan in
May, Grant has been foiled, with heavy loss in killed
and wounded, but without such discouragement to
himself individually as will prevent him from trying
again. At Atlanta, and in the rear as far as Nash-
ville and the borders of Kentucky, Hood, whom it is
the fashion in the North to disparage, as if he were
merely a Bobadil of the calibre of Pope, Hooker.
and Burnside, has carried on a series of strategic
movements which have compelled the evacuation
of Atlanta by the Federal General left in charge of
that greatly coveted position, shut up General
Thomas in the fortifications of Nashville, seriously
imperilled the Federal occupation of this great for.
tress of Chattanooga, and opened the way for the
march of a Confederate army through the rich
and sympathising State of Kentucky, which only
requires such an opportunity to take vengeance
fir the atrocities committed against its citizens by
Gans. Payne and Burbidge. Important news is
every hour expected from each of these three points,
or centres, of the war, though, for the moment, the
anxiety to learn the fate of Gen. Sherman and his
army is so great as to absorb most of the interest
which a money.loving and a money-Lunting public
has to bestow upon public affairs. As usual with
the Americans w hen they are excited, they are con•
fident of auccess. "Sherman will overpower all oh-
stecles—Sherma.n will reach the Rea with nine,.
tenths of his army—Sherman will capture Savan-
nah—Sherman will thence march to Charleston—
Sherman will destroy Charleston— Sherman will
unite with Grant at Petersburg, and compel the
evacuation of that city—Sherman and Grant will
then make the final assault upon Richmond—Rich-
mond cannot resist the onslaught—the war ap.
preaches its close," &c. Such are printed assertions
of the Republican Press ; and such are the re-echoed
opinions of the streets, the hotels, and the pot-
houses of. the city. The Government, it would
appear, is almost, if not quite, as confident as its
newspaper supporters that Sherman will pounce
upon Savannah and capture it as an eagle would a
rabbit, and has despatched large quantities of lint
medicines, and other hospital stores to Port Royal
under a competent armament of surgeons, to suc-
cour and relieve the wounded. Admiral Porter's
fleet, it is alleged, is under orders to await Gin
Sherman's force at Ossabaw Sound, about 35 miles
to the south of Savannah, and proceeded to that
point on Sunday last. The Southern papers, copious
extracts from which appear from day to day in
most of the Northern journals, paint, as a matter
of course, a very different picture of Sherman's pro-
gress and prospects, and maintain not only that he
cannot reach the coast with a third of his army,
if at all, but that ho has been checkmated at every
tarn, and forced to abandon all hopo of taking. 111 icon
Augusta, and Milledgeville, or even of releasing and
adding to his army the 20,000 F( (11111 prisoners in
the great depot at Millen ; the whole of whom were
safely removed into the interior, far beyond his
reach, several days before his advanced cavalry
appeared before the town. Some accounts that are

credited as authentic place Sherman within 80

miles of Savannah at the latest dates, while quasi
official statements eccourpg3 the public to believe
that by the 14th (to.morrow), should no pitched
battle occur in the interval, the victorious general
Will hold both Savannah and Charleston at his
mercy. This is loud boasting, and if not verified by
results may—not for the first or the hundredth time
—exemplify the folly of the Administration and
the credulity of the people.

The depletion of the Federal armies begins to ex.
cite general attention throughout the North, and a
new call fcr 500,C00 men, to produce, perhaps,
50,000, is everywhere spoken of. Meanwhile, the
bounty brokers continue busily at work. Before
Mr Lincoln issued his proclamation emancipating
all the negroes of the South who were beyond his
reach, and retaining in slavery all the negroes of the
Border States who were unhappy enough to be the
chattels of loyal owners, the Governor of Massa-
chusetts promised, in the name of his own State and
in that of all the libertysloving people of the Nortb,
that it the President would solemnly decree the ex-
tinction of slaves in the United States there would
arise such an enthusiasm for the prosecution of the
war that the highways and byways of New England
would swarm with volunteers. The President did
as was rcqaired of him, but slavery was not abo-
lished, neither did << swarms„
or any considerable
numbtr of volunteers present themselves in Mas.
sachusetts or anywhere else. Thustiisappointed in
his expectations of becoming the St. Bernard of a
new crusade, the President was compelled to resort
npdre wore ferred
will.the
to a more effective and more prosaic method of re-
plenishing his armies. As American:
profits to the hardships of the war,
ing to pay Irishmen and Germans to fitght.w.ile

_..„
they themselves staid at'horne to look after their
drdlarP, it was resolved to resort to a conscription.
What the results were all the world knows. Boon•

tits were piled-upon bounties, and recruits, know-
ing little or nothing of the cause to which they
were willing to sell themselves, were found in large

_ ....
numbers in New York and Boston—the two At-

lantic cities which era in most frequent communi-
cation with Cork and Bremen. ETery school book
in its choice extracts from the speeches of the Amer.
man orators who flourished in the early days of the