The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-17 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, May 4.
Private despatches in cipher are said to have
been received in this city announcing the com-
mencement of hostilities on the Rapidan at an early
hour yesterday morning. None of the facts, how-
ever, have been made public, and, as the whole story
may be based upon calculation rather than upon
knowledge, there are as many inclined to disbelieve
as to credit it. It appears to be certain, however,
that General Lee has concentrated a large force at
Orange Court-house to contest the passage of the
Rapidan should General Grant attempt a direct
movement upon Richmond, that both armies have
received heavy reinforcements, and that the greatest
battle of the war is imminent from hour to hour,
if it be not raging at this moment. For the first

time since Itichriond has been the object of Federal
desire, the attacking General has succeeded in iseep-

ing to himself the secret of his plans and -move-
-

raements. No babbling secretary or aide-de-camp
knows what he has determined on, and, conse-

quently, no indiscreet wife or daughter of said
secretary or aide has been able to promulgate in
strictest confidence to her dear friend with
" Southern sympathies," of whom there are so many
thousands in Washington, the direction the armies
were to take, or the day the march was to begin.
On previous occasions Richmond has been better in.
formed than New York of every movement that
was about to be made, and in this respect General
Grant has shown himself to be a good strategist,
and virtually doubled the strength of his army until
it shall please him to strike a blow.
Both sides are confident of victory, but it may not
unprofitably be asked whether both are equally
well able to sustain a defeat, and whether, in point
of fact, a signal reverse could not be far better
borne by the South than by the North. However
damaging to the prestige of the Confederate cause
the loss of Richmond and the defeat of Lee's army
might prove, neither event, or both together, would
subjugate the Southern people or lead to that ex-
termination so ardently demanded by such soldiers
as Generals Butler and Sherman, such statesmen as
Mr. Charles Sumner and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens,
and such angels of feminine grace and maidenly
_ _

gentleness as Miss Anna Dickenson and the strong
minded sisterhood of the conventicle. Oa the con.

Crary, the Sontlaern:maeses, instead of eplittinginto
factions hostile to their own Government and cla-
morons for peace and reunion with the Yankees,
would be more likely than ever to forget all minor
differences and disagreements, and unite into one
compact phalanx of unyielding hate, having nothing
to expect from submission but ruin and death, but
everything to hope from prolonged and more des-
perate resistance. On the other hand, a Southern
victory, though it might intensify the animosity of
a large section of the Northern people, and induce
them to call for more men and more money to pro-
secute the war to the bitterest extremity of desola-
tion, would be attended with the danger of disrup-
tion in the Northern councils, of popular risings in
the great cities, of an accretion of strength to the
peace party ; of the defeat of Mr. Lincoln's, Mr.
Chase's, Gen. Fremont's, and every other Republi-
can candidate's claim to the Presidency ; and at no
distant date of the transference of supreme power to
a military dictator, i❑ the rerson of Gen. M'Clellan,
or of some more rigid tyrant of the type of Gen.
Butler. But there are few Americans who look so
far into the future as to-morrow, unless for busi-
ness or personal purposes. In public affairs to-day
is sufficient for itself, and to day is always bright
and happy. It is the characteristic of the people to
be irrationally hopeful, and never to admit the pos
eibility of evil till it is upon them. At present they
rely wholly upon their superior numbers and their
superior wealth to crush the foe, forgetful that num-

bers in unskilful or unlucky hands may be the source
of woakness rather than of strength, and that money
too lavishly fabrieated by the printing press, though
it may pay their armies, may demoralise or disgust
the working classes, lead by its superabundance to
worse evils than those of scarcity, and ultimately
produce that financial crash which will ruin thou-

sands, and bring the pressure of unwonted poverty to
the homes of millions, But none of these things are
now thought of. The " rebellioa "isto be crushed
by one blow. am. Grant is the master of the situa-
tion. The South is to forget and forgive its humilia.
Lion. Like a boy who has been thrashed by a
schoolfellow, it is to bear no malice ; to join in the
sports of the playground as if nothing had hap-
pened, and to undertake with its late antagonist a
nice little foraging expedition to Mexico for the ex-
pulsion of that impudent French boy who has ven •
tured into a precinct forbidden by pedagogue Mon-
roe. Such is the talk of the hour. All is gay, glorious

and hopeful. Nothing, in Nut, is amiss, except that:
troublesome gold, which persists in reaching a -pre-
mium of 80 per cent. over greenbacks and :flaking
things unpleasant in the Treasury De.par+Aleet.
The military situation, though the, fate of the

Republic may hang upon it, does not just now
excite half the interest of the 1/:residential canvass.
Grant's success might sca.iter to the wind in a
moment the claims of every rival; bat the rivals,
if not in their own persons, in those of the friends
who hope to attain wealth, position, or place by
their promotion, are busily at work in all directions
to procure nominations by regular conventions of
their party. That section of the Republican organi-
sation which still believes that Mr. Lincoln ought,
as a matter of convenience, if nothing more, to be re-
elected, has determined to hold a convention at Bal-
timore on the 7th •.3f June. The friends of General
Fremont, the favourite of the Dutch (as the Ger-
mans are cal:Led in America), and of such influen-
tial members of the Republican party as believe that
Mr. Lin.coln is neither earnest enough, wise enough,
nor honest enough to be entrusted any longer with
the destinies of the nation, have called a convention
at Cleveland, in Ohio, for the 27th of May. They
hope to forestall the action of the other branch of
the party at Baltimore, and nominate their candi-
date under such auspices and with such eclat as
shall render it hopeless for any one on the same .
side to compete with him. The friends of Gener at 1
M'Clellan, who bids fair, provided General avant
gain no victory in the interval, to receiv-, the un-
divided support of the Democratic ;Arty, are to
meet in convention in Ch'elgo in J tine, so that the
whole COUD try, if General Lee 7,111 allow the leisure,
will be involved in the r,reiiminery_ operations of
President making In 'Ass than a month, and Mr.
Lincoln, even if s'J disposed, will have no time to
jute-dere with trAlitary movements.
Meanwhile,, to clear the way for a struggle be-
tween hir,self and the lesser athletes—whom he
can more easily throw than the heavier ones—Mr.
Lincoln has been urged to reappoint his two most
influential rivals to military command—to send
General Fremont to Florida, with a force insufficient
to add to his military renown, if not scanty enough
to lead him into
peril ; and to send General
AlTlell an to Louisiana to replace General Banks,
able bl obj •
ect. Bat, as General
-Grant is Commander-in. Chief, and
has been pro-
mised that no interference in militar • • y matters shall
take place without previous
consultation with
him, there are difficulties in the way of these
arrangements which Mr. Lincoln, even if disposed,
might find it damaging to attempt, or impossible to
surmount. Of the three other rivals whose names
are before the public—Gen. Banks, Gen. Butler, and
Mr. Chase—the first is already disposed of by his
defeat in Louisiana. The second has, it seems, placed
himself in the power of the Government by his
over-hastiness to grow nob, and will be called before
an investigating committee of Congress toanswer EV.
variety of charges both at New Orleans and in his
present command. Whether the charges be true or
false, the investigation can scarcely be other than
damaging. In a country like this, where a public
functionary is supposed to be corrupt, merely be-
cause he is a public functionary, and where it is itn-
poesiblc to be placed in a situation where a fortune
Can be made illicitly without being suspected of
making it, the charges are certain to be believed by
a class of people sufficiently largo to we-aken, it not
to destroy, his chance of a nomination by any eon-
Ten :ion of his party. Mr. Chase, a much
more
formidable candidate, though nominally withdrawn
from the contest, has been placed in a similar pre-
dicament. General Frank Blair, speaking for the
Lincoln branch of the R4publican party, has ac•

cased 'him of personal corruption, with the object
of prey enting him from attaining the object of his
ambition ; and this charge has been " endorsed "
by the War Democrats in Congress, not,
perhaps, because it is believed, but because by
keeping the Secretary oat of the field, the pros-
spects of General M'Clellan may lee improved.
The charges are that he has used the public funds
for his own electioneering purposes ; that he has
put illegal facilities of money-making in the way
of his nephew, a banker, and of his son-in-law, a
rich manufe,cturer and member of the Senate ;
that he has for political purposes appointed im-
proper persons to office in the Treasury Depart-
ment ; tl-aat such persons have been guilty of pecu-
lation and over issues of postage or fractional cur-
r eney ; and, moreover, that the female clerks in the
establishment introduced by his patronage have by
their immoral conduct scandalised the whole sere
vice. These charges—exceeding in shamelessness,
if they be false, the usual bitterness of party warfare
—could not be treated with contempt, and it has been
found absolutely necessary to appoint a committee
of investigation. The committee has already com-
menced its sittings, and Mr. Chase, who had made
up his mind to resign office, as soon as the Presi-
dent rewarded his denouncer, has reconsidered his
determination, and will hold his place till its report
be rendered. It is not considered probable that
Mr. Chase has been guilty of the grave offences im-
puted to him, or that any stain will rest on his per-
sonal honour, though it may perhaps be found that
in nepotism and favouritism he may have lain him-
self open to unfriendly criticism, if not to serious
blame. His great offence in the eyes of General
Blair and all who are intriguing for the re-election
of Mr. Lincoln is that he has been indiscreet enough,
not once, but many times, to speak contemptuously
of the intellect and manners of the President, while
in that of the Democratic party, his offence is that
he is a member of Mr. Lincoln's Government and
the soundest intellect of his party. Thus he stands
in the uncomfortable position of being attacked by
both parties, his fiercest assailants being those of
his own political household. The supposition is
that if the report of the Investigation Committee be
favourable, as almost everybody believes, he will
throw up the Secretaryship of the Treasury, and
enter the lists as an independent candidate for the
Presidency. Such a course of proceeding will set
him personally right with Mr. Linc&n and the
Cabinet, and perhaps be the means of producing
other Ministerial changes, which Mr. Lincoln, if he
could foresee them, would be the first to deprecate.
The House of Representatives, without a dissen-
tient voice, has increased the pay of the army at
an estimated cost to the Treasury of 40 millions of
dollars. It has raised the rates per month for pri-
vate soldiers from 13 to 16 dollars, and of all the
superior grades in like proportion. In this advance
the coloured soldiers are to participate. The Fede-
ral Government could not in honour act otherwise.
Expediency, if no higher motive, compelled it to do
justice to them. There are, it appears, 130,000
black troops in the service, all of whom were dis-
contented at receiving only ten dollars a month,
while white men received 13. They have for months
protested against the wrong, and in some instances
have mutinied to enforce a demand which they
believed to be otherwise unattainable. A black
sergeant, a man of considerable attainments and
high character, was recently shot for mutiny, for
insisting upon the full amount of the wages pro-
mised to him on enlistment, for which act of severity
Mr. Lincoln was publicly denounced by an ultra-
Abolitionist weekly jcurnal of this city as a shedder
of innocent blood, and the enemy of the negro race.
Since that time the urgent need of black soldiers in
default of white ones has induced the Government
to reflect upon the impolicy, to call it by no
stronger name, of making invidious distinctions
between the two portions of its armies. Accord-
ingly, the Senate, under the leadership of Mr.
Charles Sumner, voted an amendment to the Army
Appropriation Bill in which this wrong was reme-
died ; and on Saturday last the Lower House was
asked to concur and to decree that from and after
the first day of January last the uniform, arms,
equipment, rations, medical attendance, and pa:3, of
white and black soldiers should be the same. After
a debate that threatened to become Prersonal, the
House agreed to the proposition by a majority of Si
against 49. It is expected that one result of this
measure will be that the ful-are negro recruitment
will be carried on more successfully, and that an
additional 100,000 bl'..eks, who could not otherwise
have been induce `24 to enter the service, will join the
ranks. There 13 still, however, the question of re-
taliation to be decided before the blacks will be
thorou-6.ely satisfied. The Federal Government has
sole inn ly—
declared to its Southern enemy and to the
'..tvilized world that its uniform shall protect its
soldier, whatever his colour, and that for every
black man taken prisoner and afterwards put to
death, because he is a negro or because he may have
formerly been a slave oa a Southern plantation, it
will execute a white Confederate prisoner. It re-
mains to be seen whether it will carry the threat
into execution. Mr. Lincoln pledged himself at
Baltimore to exact " retribution" for the massacre
of coloured soldiers at Fort Pillow, if on investiga-
tion the current reports should prove to be correct.
A committee appointed for the purpose by the House
of Representatives has just returned from the West,
reports, not only that the rumours were true, but
that they under rather than over stated the cruelties
that were perpetrated. Under these circumstances,
it becomes interesting both to the blacks and the
whites to know whether by " i etribution" Mr. L;_a,„
cola meant " retaliation ;" and in what we:, he is
to exact the one or effect the other. As ',:no bi,,k,
promise for the future to be the mair military prop
of Federal power, the question 's one of no slight
imp:rtance to them, as wet i as to the civilized
world ; and much curios-ncy is already excited to
know es hat steps Mr. Lincoln will take in the ma-
ter. Probably, he will make his mind known in a
" Proelarnatior:'—his usual made of extricating
himself `mree a difficulty.

A BACKWARD COWRIDE.—Daring the Revolu-
tionary War, when a corps of the American army
was encamped near the borough of Elizabeth town, New
Jersey, an officer, who, by the way, was more of a devotee
of Venus than of Mars, paid his addresses to a lady of dis-
tinction, whom he was in the habit of visiting nightly. On
a discovery of the repeated absence of the officer, and of the
place where interviews with his Dulcinea were had, some
waggish friends resolved to play off a handsome trick at his
expense, which should deter him from a repetition of his
visits. The officer, it appears, rode a very small horse of the
pony kind, which he left untied with the bridle reins over
his neck, near the door, in order to ride off without delay,
when the business of courting and kissing was over, and
the horse alwa) s remained till backed by the owner, with-
out attempting to change his position. On a certain dark
and gloomy night, when the officer, as usual, had gone to
pay his devotions to the object of his dearest affection, and
was enjoying the approving smiles of the lovely fair one,
his waggish companions went privately to the door of the
house where the officer was, took his bridle and saddle from
the horse, which they sent away, placed the bridle on the
tail and the saddle on the back, and the crupper over the
horns of a quiet old cow, who stood peacefully chewing her
cud near the spot. Immediately thereafter they retired some
distance from the house, and separating, raised the load
cry of alarm, that the enemy had landed and were march-
ing into the village. Our hero, on hearing this, took conn.
sel from his fears, and snatching a hasty kiss, he shot out
of the door with the velocity of a musket ball and mounted
into the saddle, with his back towards the head on the cow,
and plunging his sharp spurs keenly into her sides, caused
her to bawl out with excessive pain, and she darted with
c rmsstei
fl plyingbut
try.
his spurs with all h
her best gallop towiasrwdsinteheenca
board—findingm p The
ffi
h
•
jog rapidly backward, maugre of all his efforts to advance,
and hearing the repeated bawlings of the tortured beast,
imagined that he was carried off Ly magic, and roaring out
most lustily that the devil had got him—was thus carried
into the very centre of the camp. The sentinels, hearing
pieces and fled, and alarm-guns
the noise, discharged their
Were fired, the drums beat to arms, the officers left their
th of their
lungs, soldiers started from their sleep as if a ghost had
quarters and cried " turn out" with all the strength
in gallant desks& e, prepared
disturbed their dreams, and the whole body, running half
naked, as quick as possible,
to repel the terrible invader. When to I the ludicrous sight
soon presented itself to their eyes of the gallant officer
mounted on a cow, with his face towards her tail, her tongue
hanging out, her sides gory with:the gouging of the spurs,
and he himself almost deprived of reason and half petrified
with horror. A loud burst of laughter burst from the
assembled band at the rider and his steed—the whole corps
gave him three times three cheers as he bolted into camp.
He was carried to his quarters in triumph, there to dream
of lovers' metamorphoses, backward rides, sternway ad-
vances, and alarms of invasions, and thereby garnish his
mind with materials for writing a splendid treatise on are
novel adventure of a coWride,—American paper,