The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-15 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

FROM'. RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON.
'(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 27.
So far as my own experience goes it would appear
that theme is no more difficulty in passing from
Washin ?,ton to Richmond and Richmond to Wash-
ington than there is in proceeding from the latter
place to Baltimore, or from Augusta to Charleston.
Of course, I would not have your readers imagine
that it is desirable for a stranger to follow the
example of the able author of " Guy Livingstone,"
and to talk secession publicly for many weeks in
Baltimore before he hazards the experiments of
Passing through the lines to Richmond. With such
antecedents he will probably insure failure when
he makes his effort to cross the border ; but, as-
suming that he possesses ordinary discretion and
confidence, there is nothing to prevent a man cross-
ing backward and forward when he pleases except
considerable exposure on the Potomac river and
possibly a long walk upon either bank. There
is, in fact, abundant reason to think that the seats
of the two rival Governments of this continent
habitual_ly swarm with emissaries from the enemy.
Such will probably always be the case when the
belligerents speak the same language, and more so
where their lines stretch over such an immensity of
area. But it is felt in Richmond, and probably
also in Washington, that the presence of spies is of
wonderfully little importance. There is nothing
that could injure the Confederate cause to be
scented out in the streets of Richmond. for upon the
whole, considering the irksomeness, the pressure,
and the weariness engendered by the war, I do not
believe that history can exhibit so harmonious and
homogeneous a nation as the Southerners, Simi-
larly,
from various reasons, and chiefly, as I believe,
from their ignorance about the South, the war
fever in the North has swept opposition before it,
since General Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania
and the fall of Vicksburg. It will take at least
twelve months more of hope deferred before the
North consent to drain the bitter cup so long and
so resolutely held away from his lips by stanch
old George 111. That this cup will have to be
drained, if not within the next twelve months,
at least within the next twelve years, is, in
my judgment, as inexorable a fact as a mathemati-
cal demonstration, as much beyond Federal preven-
tion as the revolution of the planets.
There is a strange shadowy sense of unreality
attached to passing 16 months in and about Rich-
mond, and then waking up to find oneself in Wash-
ington. To describe such a transition would demand
not only unrivalled descriptive and antithetical ex-
cellence, but also some such quaintness of conceit as
has exhibited Rip Van Winkle starting from his
long slumber in Sleepy Hollow. In Richmond the
spectator has for months and months been familiar
with war about his path and about his bed, and at
all his meals and under every roof. War is breathed
in at every breath, wafted upon every breeze, heard
in every sound, visible at every step. For grace and
elegance and lettered ease there is neither time nor
superfluity of resource ; nor, it must be added, are
they compatible with the sublime earnestness of
temper exhibited by man and woman. Sentries at
the head of every street substantiate the passer's
identity and investigate his right to be absent from
the army. As earliest dawn breaks, you are awak-
ened by the long monotonous chorus of thousands of
negroes, engaged in completing the defensive works
around Richmond, and going forth cheerfully to their
labour, which has long ago assumed such proportions
as to defy the assault of 200,000 men. This is no idle
statement of my own, but taken from the lips of the
oldest, ablest, and least boastful of Confederate offi
cers, whose name will suggest itself to every reader.
Cannon are constantly seen in the streets—either
new 12-pounder Napoleons going up to the army from
the Tredegar Works, or guns which have undergone
repair, or field-pieces which are going North or
South ; the well-known lean, lank, ragged " gray-
hack" troops, with the same lordly defiant air of in-
dividuality and self-assertion as ever,constantly troop
through the city, with their old wild, discordant yells
making day or night hideous. The familiar Southern
tunes of "Dixie" or "The Mocking Bird," execrably
interpreted by a few fifes, a cornet, and a drum, con-
trast marvellously with the rich swell of fine Ger-
man bands in Washington, which render to perfec-
tion the "Last Rose of Summer," or one of Men-
delssohn's superb marches, crashing among the dis-
tant echoes of Pennsylvania Avenue. And yet there
is a heart, a verve, and a sauciness about the Southern
" Dixie" and the mien of its interpreters, which are
looked for in vain among the stolid German musi-
cians of IN ashington and the gaudy troops bedizened
with gold lace who follow them.
But other symptoms of war, with the exception
of the uniforms in the streets, Washington has none
to show. The redundancy of " greenbacks"—those
evidences, according to Mr. Seward, of a mighty
nation's exuberant prosperity—is very perceptible
in the increased crowd of the streets and the hungry
look of greed which every face wears. But perhaps
there is no sadder sign of the times which have
brought sudden wealth to all and moral thoughtful-
ness to none, than the übiquity and boldness of the
frail sisterhood who throng every avenue and public
resort, seeking the smiles of the contractors, pecu-
lators, and nouveaux riches, and blending in a scene
which could alone be photographed in language by
the pen of a Juvenal. Ou every side money flows,
as though the Potomac were the Pactolus. The
dome of the Capitol, which once promised to share
the fate without rivalling the beauty of Cologne
Cathedral, is finished, and surmounted by a Goddess
of such Liberty as even Madame Roland never con-
ceived. The hotels are thronged to bursting ; Wil-
lards, in particular, is occupied by an excited, pike-
eyed seething crowd, such es vibrates in the coulisses
of the Parisian Bourse. At night theatres, gambling
houses, " Varieties," and worse dens of infamy,
veiled under no pretence at disguise, vie with the
attractions of the " inspired Maid of Philadelphia,"
Miss Anna Dickinson. Mr. Seward's optimism is
accepted without thought or comment ; no sound of
war save the occasional boom of cannon being tried
at the Neve-yard (a sound soothing to Yankee
vanity) ever flutters the senses ; Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Chase openly, and Mr. Seward secretly, are
speculating much more as to their chances for the
next Presidency than as to the strength of General
Lee or the designs of President Davis.
Proceed next to New York, and the recollections
of Richmond, blurred by intercourse with -Washing-
ton, fad© into the hazy distance, and can be recalled i
only by a vigorous effort of the understanding. But
as he journeys northwards from Washington the I
passenger cannot but dreamily contrast the memory .
of his recent sulfa
of" Dixie" with gs upon the overtasked railroads
the speed, the comfort, and the
roominess of the Northern
ar. I shall not attempt
to carry your readers into Broad
times described, but as way—a thousand
indescribable as Niagara—
nor to enter upon attempt at detail. There is such
matter for all feeling is this street
sinks erushed. Luxury, ostentation,
that the mind
heedlessness,
heedlessness—the richest furs, the gacdiest silks, the
brightest bonnets, the most glittering diamonds,
1,
C'•
operas, theatres, concerts, cafes artta
shows of every hue—why should I seek to ,rorlong
aree
P
the list ? At Delmonico's famous restaurant, or
a
the !liaison Doreo, Spaniards, Frenchmen,, Italians,
Englishmen discuss wines and viands to which no-
thing superior can be exhibited at Philippe's or at
Vefour's, As for a thought of the war, of the
500,000 souls which it has hurled into eternity,
from the North, or the 200,000 Confederates who
have died grimly pro arts et focis—why speak or
think of such a ghastly theme ? Good taste for-
bids its mention ; nevertheless, if ever among the
upper ten thousand its name is breathed, it struck
me that four times out of five the sym-
pathy was with the South and Jeff. Davis.
Stately polieem: n in blue or gray uniforms
patronise the ladies if hustled in crowded Broad-
way or take sly drinks with admiring friends.
way is it that Democracy converts the hotel
clerk, the steamboat or railway conductor, the
policemen,
and suchlike into a kind of demi-
god—a man only as good as his neighbour, but
vastly greater and loftier ? Occessionally, with the
usual fanfares of magnificent bands, regiments
"from our country's glorious battlefields" parade
alon Broadway with
battle flags tattered and
g
torn, and (as is insinuated) riddled into ehr,.-ds by

the tornado of shot through which they nave passed.
I have, as it happens, seen too many Confederate
battle flags which have been through every en-
counter of the war, and which (as the Northern
bullets are far more numerous than th': Southern)
have been exposed to a fiercer fir-, to believe in
this demonstration of Northern bloodthirstiness.
But the sight never fails "to bring the house down,"
and elicit the rapturous cheer of Broadway, which
believes in the truthfulness of the exhibition, and
makes many a secret resolve to keep far away from
the spot where such scenes are enacted.
But all things the most astonishing and bewil-
dering to the stranger fresh from Richmond is the
sons and daughters. I have hardly patience to
dwell upon the evidences of my meaning. A slave
who has ran away from Richmond, and gives out
that he has escaped from President Davis, is ele-
vated into an authority, and mounts the rostrum
through the columns of the public journals. " The
Southern armies are melting away by desertion, and
Lee and Longstreet can hardly keep the field." It
will be as well to state once for all that in the spring,
summer, and autumn months the balance of
deserters is always in favour of the Confederates,
but that in the depth of winter, while inaction and
stagnation prevail, the Federals are, as it were,
tethered by their teeth to their own standards.
"North Carolina is on the eve of yielding to the
blandishments of Gen. Butler, and, headed by Go-
vernor Vance, will be back in the Union by the 4th
of next July." Am I dreaming, or did I hear a fort-
night ago from Governor Vance that he would ra-
ther fight for 20 years than consent to anything but
full, final, and irrevocable dissolution of the Union ?
" Vice-President Stephens, the ablest man in the
South, is at the point of death." Daring 16 months
in the Confederate States I have never seen and
scarcely ever heard of Vice-President Stephens.
The list of similar chimeras might be swelled to
infinity. As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it will be to the end. Suppresszo yeri alter-
nate with suggestio falai : the Union must and shall
be maintained, because every man in the Northern
States so wills it, and will give his last dollar rather
than abandon the contest ! It is useless to reply
that the dollars which they are giving are " bogus ;"
that this war will be won not by those who print
fastest, but by those who shed their blood most
freely, and face self-denial with most sublime indif-
ference. " Constantly prefer a state of want to a
state of abundance," says one of the wisest writers
of all time. Behold in the contrasted aspect of two
sections the moral conveyed in this apothegm !
I could not but think, in the first instance, of
my parting conversation, a few hours before, with
President Davis ; of his calm weighty analysis of
the comparative strength of the belligerents about
to close in a fourth and deathlier grapple; of
his quiet earnest confidence; his kindling eye,
Were it not that I remember that the deified Wash-
ington was surrounded on earth by detractors and
vilifiers—that on his right hand stood Charles Lee
fomenting by anonymous addresses discord among
the American troops, and on his left Jefferson lend-
ing his great powers to secret detamation of his
chief—l should search for special attributes in the
Southerners to account for the fact that, although
almost unanimous against the Yankee, they lack
wisdom or virtue enough to appreciate the man
whom, of all others, Providence has accepted for his
mighty task. But, in spite of their indignant re-
fusal to be gauged by the measure of other nations,
history is for the Americans the same revolution of
cycles and repetition of incidents as for every other
people on earth.
Secondly, as I looked down on Broadway, and
mused upon its kaleidoscopic face, I coal(' not bat
remember the reflections of one of the brightest
intellects in Richmond, as he told me, when taking
leave of him, in what garb I should find New York,
and described the scene now before me with the in-
tuition of genius, and in words which it would be
well if I could reproduce for your readers. He said,
" What delights me above all is to hear of the
wealth, the splendour, the lavish prodigality of New
York. Tiffany never had such a demand for dia-
monds, Stewart can hardly sell a shawl if it is worth
less than 1,500 dollars. Never were there such im-
ports of women's gear from Paris, of articles de luxe
from London. For all this payment in gold is in-
dispensable ; the day of reckoning will come, though
it may not be yet."
It is impossible not to ask " When will that day
come ?" I own that Ido not think the end is at
hand yet. It is not necessary that I should waste
your readers' time by pointing cut that a defensive
war was never yet stopped by financial destitution,
and that therefore the depreciation of the Southern
currency is of insignificant moment. But, although
in the course of the present year gold cannot but
constantly be on the rise in New York, even
although the North may gain considerable suc-
cesses, it will be long before the fabric of visionary
wealth which they are worshipping will crumble
into dust. Upon this subject no warnings from an
Englishman will be for a moment endured. I will
conclude, therefore, by quoting an extract from an
American authority, who tells his countrymen, if
they would but listen to him, that
" Tolluntur in altum,
" Ut lapsu graviore ruant."
In 1855 Professor Bowen, who occupies the chair
of Moral Philosophy at Harvard College, pub-
lished a work which deservedly met with high
approbation throughout the Northern States. I
would venture to invite to this work the attention
of all those who wish to see able writing about
piper money and its delusions. Professor Bowen
points out that in 1780 the continental currency
issued by the American Congress when struggling
in the agonies of the Revolutionary War amounted
to 200,000,000 dols. in circulation, and that 500 dole.
and even 1,000 dols. in this currency was offered for
one in silver, Ha adds, in substance, the following
remarks:—" It must not be inferred, however, that
this rapid depreciation of the currency will seem to
impede traffic or paralyse industry. On the contrary
—at least until the depreciation has become extreme,
say 500 for I—commerce and labour will be galva-
nized into unnatural activity, and a deceitful glow
of animation and success—like the flush of a fever
—will appear to pervade the nation. Prices rise, of
course, as rapidly as the currency falls ; property
which was sold for 100 dols. today will command
500 dols. or 1,000 dols. to-morrow. At the same
time money is superabundant, and those who were
once too poor to buy can now easily obtain the
means of purchase. The pressure of deb
also lessened; obligations are cancelled by paying
back what is actually but one half, one fourth, or a
still smaller fraction of the real value which was due.
Ease in getting rid of old debts only creates a thirst
for contracting new ones. Commerce is thus stimu-
lated, while the basis on which it rests is every day
becoming less secure. A reckless spirit of specula-
tion akin to gambling in its chat aster and results
appears to have seized the greater part of the com-
munity. The circulation of continental money in
America in 1779, as we are told by a writer of that
day, was ' never more brisk and quick than when
its exchange was 500 for I.' And M. Thiers,
speaking of the depreciation of the French assignats
in 1795, says that to the horrors of famine were
added the scandals of reckless speculation and stock-
jobbing, the sale of merchandise which had no ex-
istence—as the pretended traffic was only betting on
prices—and the diffusion of a taste for luxury, dis-
sipation, and excess which is the invariable con-
comitant of sudden mutations of fortune.' . . .
Professor Bowen then explains the cause of this de-
preciation of the paper money, which he shows to be
its excessive issue and the fact that it is irredeem-
able.
Speaking of a reversion from paper to specie
contrast it
currency, he says--" The
wh theimmediate
are in striking
onconsequences
results already
noticed of the first issue of
gradual depreciation, The paperits
gradual money and
industry and com. Ile la tter seemed to animate
merce, to relieve the pressure of
debt, and to supply abundant funds for enterprises
which must otherwise have been abandoned ; but
the community back by a
evils than those from ich
the former seems to carry
cruel revulsion to worse
ws the excitement
citolhlaapdsaePwPahriechatiYbeeilrescued ; it is the state of
sometimes follo
and delirium of a fever. It is now seen that the
issue of paper money is really a desperate measure,
that the relief which it promises is but temporar
and the.t the prosperity which it causes is assJ;
fallecious."