The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-21 00:00:00

TN; ,31 WAR IN VIRGINIA.

ITront the Special Correspondent of the limes.)
RIcHMoND, Jane 14.
Riehmc ind, revisited at this moment by one who
has been familiar with its inhabitants during their
last two. years of agony, recalls feelings such as
thos e which, according to the late Mr Rogers,
ani' nate the breasts of very old men in their ghost-
lik a wanderings through the streets of London.
" The West-end," said he, " seems to me one vast
cemetery. Hardly a street but has in it a house once
occupied by dear friends with whom I had daily
intercourse; if I stopped and knocked now, who
wo'ald know or take interest in me ? The streets to
nth are peopled with shadows ; the city is as a city
of the dead." How much more is this the case in
little Richmond; peopledby a simple and affectionate
co.mrc unity, looped together as it were by the ties
of one large family. To me personally there is
scarcely a street or corner which does not recall a
friend—and in such times friendships seem firmer
and warmer than in gala days—whose voice still
rings in my ear, though now hushed for ever. Few
of the English visitors who have in the last three
years braved the difficulties of entering Secessia will
have heard of " Jeb Stuart's" death without hearty
regret. With some superficial and venial faults of
harmless varsity, Gen. Stuart was the most credita-
ble impersonation of what is called in this country
the Southern Cavalier. Fearless to a fault, singue
.larly enduring of fatigue, never sick, never absent
from duty, never daunted nor dispirited, he died as
be' had lived, after baffling with 2,000 men the
advance of thrice that number of horseman, the most
cheerful of victims to a cause for which he would
have given a thousand lives, His loss is bewailed
by General Lee as that of a son. No such active or
efficient agent in fathoming the designs and num-
bers of his enemy will be found by General Lee, let
this war last as long as it may.
It would be of small interest were I to recapitue
late personal details about many other Southern
Generals who have fallen since the commencement
of May, and who to England are little more than
names. But it will have been a satisfaction to many
to learn that, upon the same plank road which upon
May 2, 1863, witnessed the deathwound of Stone-
wall Jackson, General Longstreet, dangerously
struck in the throat by a Southern bullet, escaped
death upon May 6, 1864, although receiving, after
three years of unparalleled exposure, his first
hazardous wound. You will have learnt that upon
the previous day two Confederate divisions—those
of Roth and Wilicox—held their ground long and
nobly against overwhelming numbers of their foe:
They were to be relieved in the night ; and the
men, worn down by exertion, looked for a brief re-
pose as they scanned their thin numbers, when,
before the dawn of the 6th of May, heavy lines of
the enemy, massed in the night, and following each
other in quick succession, dashed upon] their en-
feebled ranks. They stood gallantly for a while;
but at last, shrieking before the compact masses
hurled upon them, they commenced a retreat, which
from a walk grew into a run, from a run into a de-
moralised rout. At this moment there was advancing
along the plank road the hardy corps which Long-
street has so long led. Into their leading files
dashed, at headlong speed and in wild disarray, the
broken ranks of Meth and Willcox, mingled with
fieldpieces, ambulances, caissons, runaway horses,
and shouting officers striving to bear up against the
rout, but whirled along in its resistless current.
Beside the road was Gen, Lee, irritated and excited
beyond precedent, and eager to stem the torrent of
flight by catching hold of any organised body of men
and launching them in person against the head of
the advancing stream. Upon this hurlyhurly of con-
fusion and alarm supervened at the most critical
moment the unshrinking constancy of Gen. Long-
street and his corps. Riding up to General Lee, he
said, " General, my men have seen such scenes
before and will not be daunted; wait, and you shall
see the enemy driven like chaff before the wind."
Right nobly did his men, and especially Kershaw's
division, verify their General's confident promise.
The onward rush of Federals was stayed ; at their
head fell General Wadsworth, gallantly sieiding
his life for what he believed the holiest of causes;
the Confederates swept forward irresistibly, and the
ground on which Heth and Willcox had bivouacked
passed again into their hands. At this moment,
Longstreet, after brief consultation with General
Lee, suggested a flank movement not dissimilar to
that by which twelve months before the bloody day
of Chancellorsville was decided by Jackson. It
was commenced, the promise of the first movement
was richly encouraging. Generals Longstreet and
Jenkins rode in great glee with their Staff along
the plank coal, when one of those unforeseen acci-
dents which are inseparable from war, and doubly
hazardous with undisciplined troops, checked in an
instant all laughter and merriment. A volley at
short range, issuing from Mahone's brigade of Cone
federates as they poured obliquely through the
tangled undergrowth of the Wilderness, struck
Longetreet's little party like a white squall ; Gen.
Jenkins sprung high from his saddle and fell dead
with a bullet through his brain ; Longstreet him•
self lay stretched in the road pulseless and inani-
mate, and, as all thought, with but few minutes of
life left in him. Instantly the flank movement was
arrested. About an hour later, Longstreet, awak-
ing from his swoon, exclaimed to Dr. Cullen, "In
another half hour, but for my wound, there would
not have been a Yankee regiment standing and
unbroken on the south of the Rapidan."
It is not desirable that I should trace seriatim the
military movements which have brought Generals
Lee and Grant, locked in a kind of death-grapple,
down from the bank of the Rapidan on May 3 to
the bank of the James on Jun© 3. Most of your
readers are familiar with the circular iron swing gate
through which it is the custom of visitors to make
their exit from the Zoological Gardens, and which
stands opposite to the main entrance to the gardens.
They will remember that at that gate there are four
rotatory wings, revolving on the seine axis, which,
as they swing round pass through the interstices of
four other stationary wings, or fixed grates, which
are attached immovably to the same axis as their re •
volving brethren. Conceive the movable revolving
wings to be the army of Gen. Grant, conceive the
fixed gates to be the army of Gen. Lee, and you
have a rough diagram of the tactics adopted by
both armies in these battles. /t will be remembered
that on May 3 Grant began to launch his mighty
army across the Rapidan, and found himself con-
fronted by Gen. Lee on May 5 and 6 in the dense
labyrinth of the Wilderness. Few students of milie
tary history will fail to be struck by the resem-
pervious region of Virginia blance which this impervious
bears to the gloomy and tangled glades which, on
Dec. 3, 1300, witnessed the defeat by the French
army of the Archduke John and his Austrians, and
coupled for ever in a bracket of fame the names of
Moreau and Hohenlinden. It is known to your
readers that, thanks to the opportune arrival of
Gen. Longstreet and his corps on the morning of
the 6th, the Federals were heavily countered in the
Wilderness and driven back with terrific loss.
But, nothing daunted, Gen. Grant set to work
with characteristic energy to execute his prede-
termined Plan of advance. Making his with-
drawal from the front behind very heavy lines of
skirmishers, he retired his right wing and swung it
behind his centre and left, upon the morning of the
7th, towards SpottsyleaeL Court-ho He had
already secured the only direct
roads leading
in,
in
that
direction, and made sure that Lee would have to
fall back in confusion or sub •
nut to be cut off from
Itichmond. But he did not count u
sagacity of his opponent, which in these
the rare
hse recent
battles, no less than at Chancellorsville, has
amounted
to the intuition of military genius. Quickly pene-
trating his adversary's design, Lee began to r
with him for Spotsylvania Court-house, a pointe
where several roads converge like the radii of a
man's outatretc:led fingers, and possessing under the
circumstances eminent military importance. The
roads through the forest had, as I had said, been
secured by Grant. Lee quickly set to work, and
with his excellent corps of sappers and miners (a
body of men whose need he had last year severely
felt at Chancelionville, and which he has since called
into existence and organised) cut a way through
the trees and brushwood for his fieldpieces and
caissons. The revolving shuttle of General Grant's
right Wing Swung rapidly round upon its ami,4, but