The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The art of war, es at present understood
and practised, is about to receive a very singular
illustration from the events now passing in Ame-
rica. The North seems at last to have awaked to

,he conviction, impressed upon it by four bloody

and indecisive campaigns, that it has not yet hit

upon the way by which the rebellious South can be
subdued. Except in the infliction of an enormous

oss of life and an immense amount of domestic

misery, the North has hitherto done almost nothing
towards the subjugation of its adversary. As far
as mere slaughter goes, its armies have endured
much more evil than they have inflicted, and the

capture of Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Atlanta,
estimate them as highly as you may, has been more
than compensated by the damaging failures before
Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, and Richmond. The
commerce of the North, as carried on by sea, has
been nearly destroyed, its finances have been fright-
fully embarrassed, its confidence in itself at one
moment so shaken that there seemed for a short

,me a positive mania for peace, and yet the result

of the Presidential election is to place once more at
the head of the republic a man above all other men

•
pledged to the energetic and unsparing continuance
of the war, surrounded on every hand by persons
who cannot afford to admit even the possibility of
failure, or of peace on any terms except the entire
and absolute submission of the South. In this crisis
we have no cause to be surprised if we find new and
hitherto untried expedients resorted to, and risks

run which in any other war, or even in this war at
an earlier period, would have been regarded as
utterly desperate. By a long series of bloody battles,
followed up by very bold and able manceavres, the
Northern Generals have contrived to force their

way through the discontented States of Kentucky
and Tennessee, and to cross the mountain ram-
part which separates the waters that flow into the
Ohio from those which find their way into the
Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The Southern
commanders, after the fall of Atlanta, appear to
have thrown themselves on General Sherman's
communications, and to have _ believed that by

operating on the long line which connects him
with the North they could force him to abandon
the advantae he hen Bathed, and to retrace his
steps through a wild country, where he might be
attacked with every possible advantage. With this
view it is said that Gen. Hood has taken up a posi-
tion more than 100 miles to the north-west of the

position ocoupied by Gen. Sherman. The effect upon
that bold and able commander does not appear to

have been exactly that which was originally con-
templated. The movement seems, so far as we can
judge from very imperfect information, to resemble
the celebrated march of Napoleon in :814 to St.

Dizier, by which he threw himself upon the commu-
nications of the allied armies; then advancing upon
Paris, and would, it is said, except for the interven-
tion of Lord Castlereagh, have compelled their re-
treat at the very moment when the object of all their
labours seemed to be within their grasp. In the
same way Sherman, instead of seeing in the opera-
tion of Hood a necessity to fall back upon his origi-
nal base of operations, has read it as an invitation
to seek a new one, and, instead of falling back on
Tennessee and Kentucky in the north-west, he has
turned his face towards the Atlantic, and is march.

ing in a south-easterly direction. There is a remark
able consent of opinion, probably resting en sure
though una vowed information, that the object of
the General is principally, perhaps, to destroy the
railways which connect the Eastern -with the
Western States of the Federation, and then, dividing
his army into two parts, to attack with one the town
of Augusta, situated on the Savannah River, and the
seat of the principal powder manufactory of the
South, and with the other to advance to the mouth
of the river and capture the city of Savannah itself,
which, although it was taken by the English in the
former revolutionary war, has es yet defied all the.
efforts of the North to take it by sea. If this enter.
prise be brought to a successful termination, Gen.
Sherman will be entitled to the honour of having
added a fresh chapter to the theory and practice of
modern warfare. Instances, no doubt, have occurred
where a bold general, under the pressure of some in-
superable difficulty or seduction of some irresistible
temptation, has abandoned the basis of his operations
and undertaken a long and toilsome march in search
of another base. But history also records very few
instances indeed where operations of this kind have
been crowned with success. The attempt has g.ne-
rally been made in the hope of raising a country
disaffected to its existing Government, and with
the prospect of almost entire security if the point
sought for can once be reached. General Sherman
has nei, her of these conditions in his favour ; the
country into which he plunges is entirely hostile to
him ; he can count on no information or assistance
of any kind, but must look, on the other hand, for
every opposition that can possibly be offered to his
advance by a people whose very existence is staked
on the alternative of his failure or success. The
country through which he is to penetrate is not
filled with large towns or populous villages ; it is,
according to English notions, very thinly inhabited,
and there is no reason to suppose that its inhabitants
will allow any of the means of subsistence which it
is in their power to destroy to fall into the hands
of an invader. The railroads which he comes to
destroy have rendered almost unnecessary other lines
of communication; the country is thickly timbered
and intersected with streams and ravines, offering
innumerable points where his march may be delayed
and his advance harassed; the organisation of labour
in large plantations, each under the absolute direc-
tion of a single chief, is favourable to any scheme
that may be devised for throwing obstructions in
his path or driving away everything that might con-
tribute to his subsistence. His orders are to devas-
tate and lay waste, and it is reasonable to suppose,
without attributing either Spartan fortitude or even
Russian self-denial to the inhabitants of Georgia,
that they will think it their best policy to anticipate
him. There are no roads worthy of the name, and
his reliance for facility of transport is said to be on
the sandy nature of the soil, which dries up very
speedily, and will not, it is thought, be permanently
affected by the storms which we may expect at this
advanced period of the year. We are not informed
whether General Sherman takes with him his heavy
artillery; nor can we, of course, form the least idea
of the amount of resistance, either from regular
troops or hastily levied militia, which he has to ex-
pect. We can only reason from parallel cases. The
assumption of the North seems to be—to use their
own simile—that the Southern Confederation is like
an egg, possessing indeed a hard shell, but when
this is once passed soft and penetrable. Experience
has given as more proof of the truth of the first than
of the second of these assumptions. There is no doubt
that on whatever side it has been attacked, with the
single exception of New Orleans, the Confederacy
has been proved to have an exceedingly hard shell,
much more resembling the armour of a tortoise than
the thin covering of an egg. But this proof of one.
half the metaphor can by no means be taken to este..
blish the other half. When Gen. Banks invaded the
State of Louisiana an army sprang up as if out of
the earth to resist him, and be was driven back
upon his communications with disaster and defeat.
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia south of Rich.
mond and North Carolina, have all been found
equally impervious. It is assumed that the old and
high-spirited State of Georgia is made of softer
stuff. Time will show ; but at present, at leas',
analogy is all against it. Tho Confederates have
probably known for sometime of Sherman's intended
move, and have had the opportunity, if they pos-
sessed the means, of throwing garrisons into Macon
—the point first threatened—Augusta, and Sayan.
nah. They have every inducement to do so, for not
only have they to save their powder magazines
at Augusta, and a port and city which would be
a formidable basis of operations to the North at
Savannah, but, besides this, every day's delay holds
out a prospect not only of escape, but of victory.
We have said that in his invasion of Georgia
Gen. Sherman has left behind him in the north-
west Gen. Hood, who it is natural to suppose will
not be slow to follow in the footsteps of his retreat.
ing antagonist. A few days' delay before Macon
or Augusta, or before any of the natural obstacles
which must be encountered in a march through a
wild and trackless country of between three and
four hundred miles, would suffice to bring Hood,
possessed of much better information, up with
Sherman under circumstances which mu-t almost
necessarily place the latter between two fires.
The worst of such enterprises as Sherman's is that
they allow nothing for the chapter of accidents,
proverbially so potent in war, and that the slightest
and most unforeseen causes may lead to their defeat
and ruin. We had our own experience in the tre-
mendous disaster of Saratoga, undertaken, it might
be thought, under auspices far more promising than
the expedition of Sherman ; in the ruin which over-
took the column of General Braddock, and in the
failure of the ea pedition against Quebec by the
bravo American General Montgomery. It will be
strange, indeed, if the army of General Sherman
should arrive before Savannah, after such a march
conducted under such difficulties, in condition to
attack and storm a town so well fortified and so
strenuously defended ; and, if not, it is difficult to
Conceive a more embarrassing position than that
Gen. Sherman will occupy, with a wasted and weary
army, a strong town in his front, and an enemy
fighting on his own ground in his rear. We do not
say that Sherman will not overcome all these ob-
stacles. Any one of a hundred contingencies of
which we have no knowledge may over throw ail our
calculations, but arguing from the usual result of
similar enterprises, from the well recognised prin.
ciples of the military art, and from the spirit which
the South has never failed to show in less serious
emergencies, we cannot see the grounds for that
tone of overweening confidence with which the
Northern press hails the commencement of an ex.

pedition so novel and hazardous, is which a general
abandons one base of communications without, so
idea
where as we can see, any very clear or definite
where he is to find another. We are inclined to
agree with the New York Tribune that the results of
Sherman's expedition cannot well be estimated too
highly, but we are not at ail confluent by which ct
the belligerents that estimate ought to be made.
HERALD.—Au appetite for horrors is a eaaractee
riatic of the ignorant and brutal. That the modern
newspaper addresses itself to such, as well as to the
more enlightened class, is evidenced pretty clearly_
by the eagernees by which those narratives of
crime which jar upon the refined taste as much as
they shock the moral sense are sought after by
multitudes of its readers. The criminal annals of
such a country as this are repulsive enough, it is
true, but there is little that is melodramatic about
them. The motives which impel to outrage are the
lowest and most sordid, the elocution the moat~
commonplace and vulgar. There is no romantio
interest in an English murder, no tragic dignity
attaches to the perpetrator like that which sarm
rounds the hero of a Greek drama. No mighty
ghost of Agamemnon drives his son to avenge
him, no Electra stands beside him, but some accora'
plice steeped like himself in debauchery, vice, and
stupidity ; the Chorus is represented by the reporters
and the detective police; the Eumenides by judge
and jury, the sheriff, and the hangman. The de'
tails of the tragedy are disgusting, insipid, loath-
some, An unfortunate old man is done to death in
a railway carriage, an old woman in a lonely cot-
tage is found mortally wounded, a putrid corpse IS
discovered in the Essex marshes. The motives of
the crime are a watch and chain, a few shillings, or
even a few pence. And thousands night and mnrh:
ing devour the whole miserable history, in which
there is not one redeeming point, one trait of ro-
mance, which to peaceful firesides might suggest
the thought of heaven, brings home the reality 01
the hell which is stalking abroad. And yet per-
haps it is as well that no possible halo of poetry
surrounds the British felon. The novelist cannot
make him interesting, nor can the advocate, with
all his eloquence, move us to pity him. No Sophns
cles holds him up as an object of the vengeance of
the gods, no Yiehylus points to him as the aP'
pointed instrument of Fate. The police reportS
leave him where he should be, in his nakedness and
foulness. It is otherwise with the picturesque yen,
detta of the Corsican, with the atrocities of the
Italian brigand or the mountaineer of Albania•
These men, in their becoming costumes and beautle
ful scenery and surroundings, with their swarthy
black-eyed women who encouraged them to the
crime, their statue of saint or Madonna to which
they pay their devotions, seem to study murder
as a fine sit, and not unsuccessfully. They are the
chosen subject of the painter—the theme in which
poet end novelist take equal delight. The very spice
of unusual horror which surrounds their achieve'
meats, the extraordinary fiendishness with which
they perpetrate their atrocities, seems to remove
them from the ordinary category of vulgar mute.
derers. In the South, where the sun strikes hotter
and the passions are fiercest, man seems more like
an angel in his gentler feelings as he is more like
a devil in his moments of wrath, than the inhabitant
of the North. It is from the " land of the cypress and
myrtle" that a tale has been brought to us during,
the last few days which in i.s unequalled horror and
tragic oomph tenesa, seems to rival, if not to outd.o,
any store of vengeance end murder to be found 1.0
the annals of ancient or modern times. In Turkel'
the country which our statesmen make from year
to year such frantic efforts to bolster up against the
ruin which seems to threaten it, it seems thst
murder is a luxury reserved for those in high placte
In the family of the ruler of that rapidly civilising
state there are Royal personages who,under certain
circumstances, regard assassination rather as a virtue,
than as a crime. Towards the close of the reign 01,
the late Abdul Medjid it was darkly rumoured that
the male child of one of his daughters was straw'
gled by the eunich as soon as born, in accordance
with a time-honoured usage of the Turkish Conn;
If Abdul Medjid, in offering up his children seemed
to invoke upon him and his the curse of the Atridf
one of hisdaughters has not been slow in imitating
another hideous precedent of Greek fable. The
Sultana Djemila, daughter of the late Sultan, and
niece of Abdul Aziz, is now in her twenty-second
year, and it may be supposed in the fulness of her
charms. She was married to a rich subject of 018
Porte, Mahmoud Jeiladin Pacha, over whom 613.:
seems to have tyrannised to her heart's content. Di;
not usual for a Pasha to content himself with one
wife, and if this miserable Turk, with this terrible
Rexene, in his harem, occasionally sought the solace
of other charms, and had even the bad taste to prefera
them to those of the Imperial spouse whom he ba
been commanded to wed, we cannot much bleat/
.him for it. Among the evil passions which ripe°
in the unhealthy hotbed of harem life, the passil
of. jealousy had developed into a fury in the rail!:
of the neice of the Sultan. It was not long left
want of an object. There was a beautiful slave'
whom the Pacha was supposed to prefer to his wet!
lawful wifo. One day the Paella entered th;
dining-room where it was his custom, in accordanc.o
with Turkish etiquette, to dine apart from hi.
women. The Sultana was found reclining on
divan in the room. He made a low obeisance, 6'
was his duty, to the Sultan's daughter. She bad:
him proceed with his dinner, and continued ete
watch him, languidly and haughtily, like t"
stealthy, soft tigress that she was, as the unhaPee
husband took his accustomed seat at table.
ordered the servants to remove the cover, but thee
hesitated, trembling. The Sultana reproved thellll
and told the Pacha to remove it himself. He lifted
e
it, and behold such a banquet as Medea set befera
Jason. On the dish before him was the gory The
of the favourite, still beautiful in death. lua
Sultana had caused her to be decapitated t°l4
morning. The Peelle took one look, and fell bac
a corpse. The Sultana Djernila was avenged.