The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-27 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, May 13.
Shouts of "victory" resound in the streets from
the voices of the newsboys, The word " victory,"
in large type, stands at the head of the flaring
columns of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and tenth
editions of ere ; and in still larger
letters, that the ew
hewhnorusPnasPmay read, at the corners
of streets, where the bulletins of battle are es-
hibited to the crowd; but victory nevertheless is
not aohieved, and seems as distant as ever. Hitherto
the march of Grant—though, if it be ultimately
saccessful, it will be considered heroic—is the ad-
vance of a piece of mechanism. He sees no obstacles,
and goes blindly and ruthlessly on. He trusts to
nothing but superior numbers and hard fighting.
The lives of his men are of no value. He throws
them away by thousands, to gain half a mile of
jungle. He has pushed on for five leagues, and paid
about 9,000 lives for each. At every step he fights
at a great disadvantage, on ground of the enemy's
choosing. But he fights on. His men are picked
off by unerring sharpshooters from behind every
tree, but his order is still to push forward. His
Generals fall as if they were of no more account than
private soldiers. Up to Tuesday evening—the
seventh day of the conflict—he had lost 13 of them

in killed, wounded, and prisoners and at least 45,000
men. This loss is admitted by friends and admirers,
while those who are neither incline to add 15,000 to
that enormous estimate. Bat still he holds his way
undaunted, seeing nothing, caring nothing, but
Richmond, which if he ever reach upon the terms of
these seven days he will reach without so much as
a body guard—a solitary prisoner. The havoc com-
mitted in his ranks is sickening to reflect upon.

One New York regia.ent, the pride of the city,
which not long since marched down Broadway
amid fisunting banners, waving kerchiefs,
loud huzzes, and the music of drum and fife,
suffered so terribly that out of its full comple-
ment but four officers and fifteen men were left
after half a day's fighting. Whole brigades have
lost their officers and two-thirds of their rank and
file, and, having none to lead them, have been in-
corporated with other brigades, only less cruelly
decimated than themselves in having a brigadier
left to reorganise their shattered remnants. Arid
all this time the desperate struggle has only been
waged on the outskirts of the Confederate works,
and in such positions as General Lee would prefer
to see an enemy in whom he wished to annihilate.
The line of the North and South Anna has yet to
be reached ; and if Grant march through it and
pay no dearer for the privilege than he has paid
for the honour of marchiug from toe Itf:pidan to
Spottsylvania. Court-house, his original army,
whether it numbered 150,000 or 250,000, will have
dwindled to one-half, and will have more dreadful
work before it than has yet been attempted. But
it is all one to General Grant. With the sublimity
of genius, or of madness (the fortune of war must
determine which), he has declared to Mr Stanton,
who has communicated the news to the public,
" 1 hat he will go to Richmond by that line, if it
takes him all the eummer to do it." Impulsive, and
easily led, as the people are, and apt to be astonished
at nothing, they are astonished at this audacity.
They do not know how to account for it on any
other supposition than that Grant is the greatest
as well as most daring General whom the world ever
sew, and are content to wait a little longer for the
results before they change
their opinion. But the
voice of wailing and lamentation is heard in too
many thousands of households in this and all the
cities of the North to permit unqualified approba-
tion of a system of war ho costly as this, or to silence
the buzz of adverse criticism. If Grant's army,
instead of a throbbing, thinking mass of human
beings, were but an agglomeration of steel and iron
—a monster steam engine cunningly put together
for purposes of destruction, its driver could not more
deliberately urge it forward in its pitiless career.
People begin to ask themselves what will happen,
if, after all, the machine shall be dashed to pieces
by the obstructions that it will have to butt against
if it continue to advance. They ask in vain. No
one can answer, or no one will, except by a shrug
of the shoulders and a look of resignation.
The greatest success that has yet attended the
operations of Grant was accomplished by General
Hancock on the night of Wednesday. Both armies
were resting from the fatigues of Tuesday—the
most dreadful day of carnage ever known on the
American Continent--when Hancock, taking ad-
vantage of the darkness and the ram, suddenly
changed his position from the right to the left of
Grant's flee, turned the rear of the Confederate
army, and fell upon the division of General A. P.
Hill, capturing 30 guns and 4,000 prisoners. This
was a serious blow to General Lee, and when intelli-
gence of the fact was conveyed to
Washington and
to this city simultaneously with the statement that
Gen. Philip Sheridan, at the head of a large body of
Federal cavalry, had also flanked Lee, and severed
his railroad connexion with Richmond, a rumour,
which for awhile found many believers, spread
rapidly abroad to the effect that Lee had capitu-
lated with his whole army. Well-street received
the news as true, and the price of go.d began to
fall rapidly. An official announcement from the
War-office was afterwards prom
&gated denying the
capitulation, and this, coupled with trustworthy
intelligence, confirmed by a score of witnesses, that
the battle commenced by
Hancock's division, ex-
tended to the whole army yesterday mornings sent
gold up again as quickly as it had fallen.
Amid all the terrible excitement of the war news
it is easy to perceive that there is an under-current
of deep feeling. The people
are not SO vainglorious
as formerly. They are not so certain of victory es
they have been on previous occasions, and the bril-
liant strategy of Lee and the unconquerable heroism
of the Southern army extort admiration on every
side, The fact is that the North, even in this day of
extremity, is proud of the noble qualities exhibited
by the Southern army
and
e,and feels, possibly
not for the first time, that the war was
a mistake, and that if it Were
possible for North
npsegoivpilng
a li
and South to shake hands, and be to each other as
once they were, it would be a glorious privilege
and a blessing to both of them. Never before did
the Peace party speak out so boldly, and find so
many to agree with them. Even Mr. Wendell
Phillips, as blatant a war trumpeter as the land
ever produced, inclines his heart to better impulses.
No living American orator is so eloquent as this
gentleman, He is as direct as Mr. Bright, as calm
as Mr. Cobden, as persuasive as Mr. Gladstone, as
elegant as Lord Carlisle, and when occasion de-
mands can be as fiery as Lord Derby. His language
is the purest English, without the slightest taint of
the Yankee idiom or accent, or the least approach to
American slang. He never "speaks to Buncombe"
or indulges in the rhodomontade which his country
men call "spread eagleiem.“ His satire cuts like
she polished r-sz .r, and draws b cod with the
-c4rct- .ouen tt-it snows the thorough
master of the instrument. be seldom condocenda