The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-24 00:00:00

itiE CIVIL WAR AMERitiA,
o

(From the Tines Correspondent.)
BALTTMOR.E, June 7.
The remark© of a portion of the English press,
which seem to admit that Gen. Grant has tithe' to
had the advantage in the cempaign against Rich-
mond, have been received in this city with peat
surprise. So far from having had the advantage,
Grant in every movement he has made has been
foiled, if not defeated. He has been forced to
abandon every position he has assumed, and after a
munth'e strategy and fully a fortnight of herd fight-
irg he has lost one way or another close upon
100,000 men in killed, wounded, missing, and Pri-
soners, end finds himself upon the Chickahominy,
place which he could have reached without the loss
of a battalion if either he or the authorities at Wash-
ington Lad not been so perverse as to reject that
mode of approach to Richmond because it was the
favourite route of Gen. M'Clelian. Having made
a long detour from the North Anna he was confronted
at his next halting place at Mechanicsville by
the whole strength of the Confederate army. No-
thing daunted by his repeated and costly failures
he essayed during a whole week to force that
position ; but finding his supplies in danger of
being out off, and having lost upwards of 7,500
men on Friday, the 3d inst., in one futile assault
upon the enemy's works in front of him, he has once
again found it necessary to change his plans, to
abandon Cel,l Harbour and Mechanicsville, which
he discovered to be as strongly fortified as any place
with which his brave but luckless legions have come
ineo contact; and to make a new and, it is to be
supposed, a &al endeavour to reach Richmond by
crossing the CnickahJminy below tiewbridge. This
was M'Ciellan's plan, and from all present appear-
ances a few days will show whether he can make
more of it than his predecessor, Up to this
moment, however, he has gained nothing. He has
exhibited a bulldog pertinacity. He has sacrificed
his men. He has practically declared that heknows
no such word as "Lil." He has been knocked
down and got up ggaia. He has been repulsed and
returned to the encounter. He has taken but slight
heed of difficulties, and has exhibited a degree of
courage which is the result eitner of heroism or of
ignorance. Finally he has sat down to besiege a
city which is strongly fortified in front and has all
its communications open in the rear, which rear he
=snot reach. Even tie New York papers, which
are always shouting " victory' when there is no
victory, begin to admit, with wry faces and the
worst possible grace, that a siege thus begun may
late- the whole bummer, and that before the summer
is half over, the besieging army, settled in a swamp
and sweltering in the rays of a Southern sun, are
mach more likely to lose half their numbers by fever
and dysentery than to produce the slightest effect
-apon the courage or the resources of the besieged.
The battle of Friday last, of which but very
slight and cursory mention has been made by the
Wer Department, but of which the full details have
been communicated to the public by witnesses of
and participators in its horrors, was precipitated
by General Grant with the intention of making it
the crisis of the campaign. The position assailed
was supposed to be the key to Richmond, via the
Chiekehominy ; but as on all previous occasions
since the passage of the Rapidan, the Federal com-
mander found it impossible either to surprise or de-
feat his ever-vigilant opponent. In less than ten
minutes the battle was ended. The Confederate
shot poured through the masses of the Federals,
cutting them down by hundreds at one diecharge—
so thick were their advancing ranks; and in almost
less time than it takes to write down the sentonee
which records their braveryand their doom upwards
of 6,000 men received their death wound and lay
sprawling and helpless on the bloody field. Even
the stoicism of Grant, though not outwardly moved,
as far as the eyes of his watchful aides could
dis-
cover, gave way. He ordered no renewal of the
charge that had cost him eo many thousands, inclu-
sive of five generals and 20 colonels ; and after hasty
consultation with Gen. Meade, and afterwards with
Generals Hancock and Warren, appears to have
made up his mind that he was not on the right
road to Richmond,and that he had either to besiege
it by regular process or find some other and
more available route by which he could carry it by
strategy or a coup de main.

People who are ordinarily rapid for the prosecu-
tion of the war are becoming alarmed at Grant's
contempt for human life. 113 values his legions no
more than if they were coveys of partridges. Already
it is whispered that nearly 1,100 officers are to be
included in the 90,000 or 100,000 men who have
been kilted, wounded, and taken prisoners since he
began his sanguinary march. He is spoken of as the
butcher," and a requisition is hinted at calling
upon the President to remove him. Not only the
friends of the &nth but multitudes of earnest
Northern men have already cone to the conclusion
that his campaign is a failure—that ho has done his
utmost and can do no more, and that he has already
done as little as 'Welt/llan at a cost ten times as
fearful. To-day some English officers and news-
paper correspondents who arrived in this city from
the front, report that the losses on Friday lest were
nearer 15,000 than 7,4100; that on Saturday and
Sunday 5,000 or 6,000 more were sacrificed to the
obstinacy of the LeutenanteGeeeral, and that a
spirit of disaffsc:ion has arisen in the army which
threatens to become a mutiny, if the men continue
to be driven like mac Lines against impregnable
positions, without the slightest solicitude whether
10 or 10,000 Ayes are sacrificed in the attempt.
Baltimore, aristocratic and fashionable, is so
engrossed with the war news that it thinks and
speaks of nothing but Grant and Lee. Baltimore,
democratic and unfashionable, is, on the contrary,
wholly absorbed by the proceedings of the Conven-
tion. The noble art of President-making seems in
its initial stages to require a vast amount of music
and oratory. As the witches could not transform
the Thane of Glamis into the Theca of Cewdor and
King of Scotland without much incantation and a
musical accompaniment, so the delegates who have
come hither to boil the Presidential caldron and
threw their several weird ingredients into the mass,
cannot perform their allotted parts without the aid

or fife and drum, the brass band and the trulapgt.
All day long and half the night, the delegations,
who have th:termined to prolong the reign of Mr.
Lincoln, live in an atmosphere of music. Under
the balconies of the hotels, where they are lodged
in batches—the representatives of each State keep
together—some at Birnum's, some at the Eutaw-
house, some at Guy's, &c., the minstrels gather, to
make the day unpleasant and the night hideous
with ' Yankee Doodle," " Hail Columbia," " Star-

spangled Banner," and " John Brown's Body Lies
Mouldering in the Grave," varied occasionally with

the more agreeable melodies of the " Trovatore" and

the " Puritani." These musical performances are,
however, but baits for speeches. The crowds that
assemble under the windows listen patiently while
the band plays, and when the musicians •have done
shout for some member of the delegation to show
himself. After short and coy delay he appears, and
addresses his fellow-citizens with lend voice and
violent gesticulation, It the speaker be from New
York, Philadelphia, or Boston, or any civilised part
of the Union, the speech is for the most part prac-
tical, thougn ornate, and dwells largely upon the
necessity of recruiting the last man, spending the
last dollar to crush the rebellion, and the equally
urgent necessity of re-electing " the statesman, the
patriot, and champion or liberty, Abraham Lin-
coin" for another term. If the Speaker be from the
West—from
Qiio, Indiana, Illinois, or Kqnsas, he
is equally stong on the last man, the lust dollar, and
the pen:jar fitneßq of Mr. Lincoln for his place, but
far mow ,mphatic in his doinnciation of thorebels,
and profuse in the empioynnntof such words as

" hell," •' damnation," and the " devil." These and
some kindred expressions seem to form the staple
of Western oratory. " The rebels," said a Brigs.

dier-General from Ohio last night to a crowd nnder

the balcony of the Eutaw House,

" have but two

rights to which they can lay claim. The one is a

Constitutional right, and tho other is a Divine right.

They have a Constitutional right to be hung—they

have a Divine right to be damned." Another

Western orator at Barnum's declared that " Jeff
Davis would be in hell in less than six weeks and

that Abraham Lincoln was the noblest man that

God had ever created." He was followed shortly