The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-15 00:00:00

serve no purpose for the Confederates to carry. The
conditions under which the war is carried on by
North and by South vary essentially in this re-
spect. If the South stands still she is every day a
gainer; with tho North it is emphatically true that
non progredi est regredi. From the very first the
constant efforts of the journals in Mr Lincoln's in-
terest has been to prove that the Union troops are
always gaining ground, and many a general (as, for in-
stance, Burnside at Fredericksburg) has been goaded
on to his ruin by the cry, " Defeat is better than
inaction." That Grant is no nearer to the capture
of Richmond than he was when he crossed the
Rapidan is the counter assertion of the Richmond
journals every week. With the exception of the
inevitable weariness incident to so unremitting a
campaign as Lee's troops have sustained since the
4th of May, his strength at this hour, thanks to his
careful economy and judicious handling of his men,
compares very favourably with his strength on the
first day of this year's campaign. It will be seen,
therefore, that Lee's ability to hold Richmond and
(if it seem desirable) Petersburg throughout the
winter hinges upon the two questions whether he
can supply his army as well as the inhabitants of
the two principal cities of Virginia ; and, secondly,
whether the army of General Grant during the
winter months can be reinforced to the extent of
from 100,000 to 150,000 men. Less than the for-
mer number, added to Grant's present force, will
have no chance against the earthworks which girdle
Richmond, and which I have so often described.
It is the universal belief of thoughtful men in the
South that Virginia will be the chief scene of Mr
Lincoln's efforts during the remainder of this year.
Large bodies of Federal troops have lately been
withdrawn from the Mississippi River—as, for ex-
ample, the troops in Northern Mississippi, which
have been held in check in the neighbourhood of
Tupelo and Oxford by General Forrest for the last
six months—and it was at first believed that they
would be added to the strength of General Sherman.
But there is reason now to suppose that Sherman's
force has been diminished rather than increased,
and that these reinforcements are designed for Vire
ginia, and are on their road to Grant or Sheridan.
One result of the withdrawal of this Federal force
from Northern Mississippi will be to liberate the
ablest, most active, and most efficient cavalry cap-
tain whom the Confederate States have as yet pro-
duced. General Forrest is a rough, uncultivated
Western man, but in force of character, in promp.
titude of action, and in adaptation to the wild
and fatiguing warfare in which he is engaged,
it is doubtful whether a more formidable guerilla
chief ever drove spur into a horse's flank. It
is said that since the commencement of the
war he has had thirty horses killed under
him. I never entertained much expec-
tation of the achievements which Gen. Wheeler and
the Confederate horsemen under his charge would
accomplish, but I shall be surprised if Gen. Forrest
does not exert a disturbing influence upon Sherman's
communications.

But a point of greater interest either than Rich•
mond or Atlanta seems likely before long to be the
very spot from which lam now writing. It is
doubtful whether any other town in Secessia, not
even Richmond or Augusta, with its contribution of

10,000 lb. of gunpowder per diem, has exercised such
an influence upon the fortunes of this war as the
insignificant little port of Wilmington, from which
before the war only one shipment of 200 bales of
cotton direct to Europe had ever been made, but
from which the sinews of war, in the guise of cotton
bales, have flowed out uninterruptedly to England
for three years past, while an amount of war mate-
rial and cf supplies of all kinds has been enesked in
through this same gate to an extent of which your
readers have little conception. There is no other
port which existed in 1861 so favourable to blockade
runners as Wilmington and the mouth of the
Cape Fear River. Tho astonishing want of enter•
prise which characterised the Yankee navy during
the first 12 months of the war led to the disregard
of a river the mouth of which was for many
months defended only by two or three small field-
pieces, with half a dozen rounds of ammunition to
each. If, instead of indulging the spite of Boston
against Charleston, in April, 1863, the whole power
of the Federal navy had been turned against Wil-
mington, the course of this war might have been
more influenced than by burning ten cities like
Charleston, or capturing half a dez,enVieksburgs. As
matters now stand, the capture at present of Wil-
mington (were it poeeible) would, for reasons which
it is not necessary to state, produce no result ; and
secondly, Wilmington, long unmolested, has grown
into such a fortress as to defy the utmost efforts of
the Yankees from the sea. I have in vain urged
upon your readers the importance to England of
being represented by one or two of her ablest rani.
tary engineers, to learn aright the lessons of this
war; but I may mention that in conatructing the
forts at Duppel a capable Prussian engineer adai.ted
the peculiar system of earthwork and traverses which
he had seen at the mouth of the Cape Fear River,
and proved that European military engineers may
learn with advantage from the skill of a Beauregard
and a Whiting as much as was taught them by the
genius of Todleben. Talk of the experiments in
rifled cannon at Shoeburyness! An English artillery-
man might watch the firing of the Armstrong shunt
gun, of the Whitworth, of the Brook gun, and of
every variety of smoothbore at the mouth of Cape
Fear with the additional enlightenment which real
war confers beyond the experience gained from a
sham rehearsal.
So long as Wilmington was merely a point of
entry and of exit for blockade runners it received
comparatively little attention from that Old Man of
the Sea, Mr Gideon 1V elles ; but the recent exodus
from this port and the return hither of the Talla-
hassee, after playing the questionable part of Paul
Jones off the harbour of New York, seem to have
attracted hither the notice of those active spirits in
the North who have conducted this war through-
out upon the principle of shutting the stable door
when the steed is stolen. It is universally expected
here that a formidable attack, probably conducted
by that renegade eon of Virginia, Admiral
Farragut, is shortly imminent. I can promise
him that ample cheer awaits him here, and that
he has got a harder nut to crack than Forts
Morgan and Gaines at Mobile. There has been
much laughter and chuckling here about the recent
entry into this port of Captain Taylor "N ood, after
his successful cruise in the Tallahassee, Captain
Wood came one darlr night right through the
Yankee blockaders, and was fired upon like an ordi-
nary blockade runner. He immediately responded
by firing his broadside in the direction of the flash
of the gun which he had seen. The Federal Cap-
tain naturally concluded that he had fired upon one
of his own associates, and showed a red light
Captan Wood fired at the red light. Another
Federal captain then showed a blue light. Captain
Wood fired at the blue light. This led to a general
cannonading from the Yankee vessels all round, and
Captain Wood left them firing upon each other and
in blind and perplexing confusion, long after he
had slipped away from their vicinity and was safely
anchored under the guns of Fort Fisher.
September 24.
Since the above letter was written information
has been received that a disaster, occasioned appa•
rently by General Early's contemptuous estimate of
his enemy, has overtaken his army, which will long
be memorable as having coat the Confederacy one of
its most valuable lives. It appears that Early, hav-
ing been weakened by the withdrawal from his
ranks of that portion of Anderson's (late Long-
street's) corps which had been sent two months ago
to the Valley, continued, with very inferior forces
as compared with Sheridan's. to occupy his old lines
between 'Winchester and Berryville, instead of fall-
ing back to the very strong position some 20 miles
in the rear, which has long been regarded as the
key to the Valley, and which is at a place called
Fisher's-hill,
in the neighbourhood of Strasburg.
Upon the 19th inst. Sheridan, inspirited, as it is
here believed, by a visit from Grant, who was with
him on the preceding day, attacked Early in
vCeOrny heavy f
f e aerat e armoryce; and after
with a large
boflankingdyfeavtahlery
cliotmtle.
polled Early to retreat to Strasburg. The action,
of which I have received no details, appears to have
been one of the sharpest of the war, and is to be
bewailed principally in connection with the death
of General Rodeo, one of the most promising Major
Generals in the Confederate service, It will be