The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-22 00:00:00

(From the Correspondent of the limes,)

IticauoND, July 20.

In analysing the material of the Federal and
Confederate rank and file in Virginia, it is easy to
arrive at an explanation of their a`titude, as they
lie idly facing each other at St. Petersburg—the
Federals willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ;
the Confederates satisfied to repel attack, but in-
disposed to subject themselves, by assuming the
initiative, to such decimation as they have hitherto
been able, by awaiting Grant's onslaughts, to exact
from him. It is evident that the available resources
of men in both sections are drained tc the lees. Of
what elements are these final and champion
armies composed ? It is susceptible of demonstra-
tion that in the Southern army the foreign ele-
ment, liberally estimated, does not exceed 5 per
cent. The rolls of company after company exhibit
not a single name other that of a native-born Ame-
rican. It is squeamishness, because these Southern
armies are undisciplined, to deny to many :of the
men serving in them the title of veterans. It is
doubtful whether in any three years of this CM-
tury the most disciplined and war‘experienced
veterans of Europe have seen more or harder fight-
ing than many of these Southerners. There i 3
with them no enlistment for 100 days, or one year,
or three years. Not a man but is in "for the war,"
and those who have seen less fighting than their
fellows take their tone from, and are leavened by,
the men of Ball Run and of the seven days around
, Richmond. They are of such stuff as Victor Hugo's
Vieille Garde, who, diminished in number, waxed
greater in heart. Their aim as marksmen is such
as would warm General Hay's heart. and their
practice in these familier Virginian woods would
far surpass that of the best regiment that ever
graduated at Hythe. It will be conceived what
reciprocity of confidence and attachment ex-
ists between General Lee and them. Turn
next to the Federal army and investigate its ma.
terial. On the roll call there are probably not
100 names whose owners were present at Bull Run.
There are tumultuous and spasmodic expressions of
confidence in Grant (more audible at New York
than at Petersburg), but what can he and his army
know, or how much can they care, about each other?
Oat of every hundred Federal soldiers the names of
prisoners brought here to Richmond reveal that 60
are foreigners, who have been either starved, bribed
or hocnssed into the ranks. -What is to be expected
in the way of daring of self-devotion from a man
wha is tossed upon the wharves of New York from
either Ireland or Germany, and who turns soldier
because he knows not how to get a meal ? Of
what account are soldiers lured into the ranks by
thousand-dollar bounties, or will the rule that
" the hireling fleeth because he is an hireling" be
for the first titre reversed upon this continent ? Bat
large as is the proportion of men who have been
bribed or starved into the Federal shambles, I
believe that no previous army that ever existed
exhibits so large a number of kidnapped, drugged,
and naturally disaffected men. It is, I protest, a
marvel to me, when I reflect on the different morale
of the two armies, that even such success as has
attended Sherman and Grant should have been
realised by the heterogeneous piece of diversified
mosaic, by the tesselated pavement without cement,
to which their armies may be likened. Here are a
few specimen cases which will reveal of what stuff
Grant's army is composed.

There was lately brought to Castle Thunder (one
of the prisons of Richmond) a young chubby-faced
English boy, named James Addy, 18 years of age.
He was a deserter from the Yankees, and his story
is such as I have heard again and again repeated,
but rarely with such appearance of veracity as in
this case. His father is by him stated to be a
yeoman farmer, living near a Yorkshire village
called Askern, about six miles from Doncaster. At
13 James Addy says that he was appointed mid-
shipman on board her Nl4jesty's frigate Emerald ;
but after servlng, with intervals of sickness, for
about four years on the coast of Africa, his
health gave way, and he resigned and returned
home. Last winter, accompanied by two friends,
Henry and Thomas Garner, he visited New York,
intending to return in two or three weeks to Eng-
land. The keeper of the house in New York where
they boarded drugged their wine, and put them
while insensible in the guardhouse, The ruffian,
in addition to stealing the money and valuables of
young Addy and his companions, doubtless realised
the bounty money paid by the recruiting officers fir
three recruits. They were put into company Aor
B, 47th New York Regiment. They refused to do
duty as soldiers, Addy tried twice to escape before
he succeeded, and says that one of his companions,
Henry Garner, was arrested while trying to escape,
and, as Addy fears, was shot. After many hard-
ships and difficulties Addy succeeded in getting to
Richmond, and was committed to Castle Thunder,
the prison for deserters. The poor boy says that
he would die a dczen deaths rather than go back to
the Yankees. The Commissioner appointed by the

Confederate Government to examine Yankce de-
serters has taken pity upon him, and he has been
sent to Wilmington with a view to running the
blockade and getting back to England. It is hard
to see, if this story be true, why Henry Gainer's
parents are not entitled to demand from the Wash-
ington Government compensation for the death of
their son (as compensation was exacted for thy
murder of Capt. Brabczon from the Chinese Go-
vernment), or, at any rate, the punishment of the
New York lodginghouse keeper, whose name is
known. It must be obvious that this case is one
which admits of verification by reference to the
captain of the Emerald, and courts investigation.
At the risk of wearying your readers, I will men-
tion one other of the many cases which are con-
stantly coming under my notice. Henry Miller,
born of G-3Tralli parents in England, was a private in
her Majesty's 30th Foot (now quartered at Mon-
treal or Toronto), and was discharged, his time

having expired, at Montreal in May last. He
crossed the Canadian frontier, entered the State of
Now York, was drugged, and in less than a week
found himself encamped on an island in the HA-,
son river off Sew Yirk. He was sent down to
Grant's army, put into a cavalry regiment, and de-
serted with his horse, which he delivered over to
the Confederates, into whose lines in Petersburg
he also piloted a Virgin;an lady who was cut off by
the Federalo. This poor fellow, whose story seems
to me in every respect trustworthy, has to pay for
the ordinary faithlessness of Yankee deserters by a
long incarceration in Castle Thunder. His hatred
of the Yankees exceeds beUef. I might prolong this
list by giving the history of many other British
subjects now immured in Castle Thunder as Yan-
kee deserters, who all agree in their tale of wrong,
suffered at the hands of that Power whose uniform
they have lately worn. But the interest of these
narratives consists for your readers in the insight
which they afford into the constituent elements of
that army which " threltens Richmond." General
Lee has lately given clear evidence how far he con-
siders. Richmond threatened by dismissing a third
of , army, under Early, to act against Washing-
ton. At any rate, the mention of these cases in
your columns may serve to put all British subjects
who have occasion to visit the North American
continent on their guard, if they do not wish to
fin i themselves carrying a musket in the Yankee
ranks.

The chronic inaction of the armies before Peters-
burg still continues, but we are promised by the
Northern Journals some surprising move on the part
of Grant before long. If this prophecy has
any
meaning, it may refer to the mining ope-
rations in which Grant is known to be engaged.
The Federal and Con federate lines, as they wind
around Petersburg, ars in many places not more
than 60 yards apart. It is known that the Fede.
rals are running a mine forward at one elm, and
it is believed that they are making similar efforts
in other spots. The success which General Grant
had last year in mining under the works of Vicks.
burg encourages him, I presume, to repeat the ope•
ration against Petersburg. He will have a good deal
of burrowing to do before he works his way to Rich-
mond. It will be obvious that, even if it were impos-
sible for Gen. Lee to meet him by countermining,
little resuit would arise from blowing into the air
perhaps 100 yards of earthwork along a Ilse which
runs for 12 or 13 miles. Tile indications are that

Gen. Grant will pass the summer and autumn in his
present location, and that the Northern States will
be amused for the next four months by the constant
cry that the "on to Richmond" is proceeding most
satisfactorily, until President Lincoln a reinducted
on the 4th of November into the P, es,dential chair
as the presiding genius over operations which at
some unknown future period are to eventuate in the
capture of Richmond. As to Grant with his present
army taking Richmond or Petersburg, the child
born this day will be a stalwart man before he wit-
nesses such an event. If the Northerners are carry-
ing on this war with any other object than the re.
election of President Lincoln, they have no hope
unless they put at least 100,000 additional men, not
drugged or kidnapped, but earnest Yankees, into
Grant's ranks. As matters stand, I see no reason
why Lee should not send 20,000 additional men to
reinforce Early, in which case the latter may, after
he has collected and sent south as much loot as he
wants, march to Baltimore, orPhiladelphia, or Pitts-
burg, or whither he likes. It is hard to say what
force is requisite to enable Gen. Lee to hold his pre-
sent lines at Petersburg against so loosely coupled
and downhearted an army as now oppose him. In
the words of a Richmond journal, " General Grant's
army is at this moment the object rather of pity than
of alarm." These words derive their significance
from the well known want of water under which,
in their present situation, the Federal troops are
suffering. The sewers of Petersburg empty into the
Appomattox, the sewers of Richmond into the James
River, and from these two streams the supply of
water employed by the troops which besiege Peters-
burg is derived. There is said along the whole
length of the Federal lines to be only one fine na.
tural spring of water. It may be conceived what
are the sufferings of troops mainly dependent, under
the vertical sun and exhausting heat of a Virginian
July, upon the hot and foetid water drawn from these
impure sources, and served to them in barrels hauled
by waggons into their lines. It is probable that,
with their wonted spade industry, the Federals will
have sunk many wells, but in the existing long-
continued drought the supply of water thus obtained
cannot be abundant. The Confederates, on the other
hand, have at their command all the wells and
springs which supply the city of Petersburg. It is
universally believed here that the latter end of
August and September will be almost as fatal to
Grant's soldiers, unused to Southern heats, and in
one of the most pestilential spots on the James
River, as were the tearful battles in the month of
May. It is not anticipated that Lee is likely to
waste his men's lives by butting against the strong
fortifications of his opponent. I see little probability
of any change in the situation of these two armies
for many weeks to come. The attempt to starve out
Richmond and force Lee's army to retreat or venture
upon a hazardous attack is an admitted failure.
Both the railroads which feed Richmond from the
South—the lines I mean which communicate with
Weldon and Danville—are again in operation—the
former for 14 days pest, the latter since the 17th
inst, It will not be an easy task for Grant's cavalry
materially to interfere with these lines again.
The interest of the war, as it ebbs feebly round
Petersburg, is altogether superseded by the fiercer
excitement which attracts all eyes at this moment
to Georgia, where an immediate battle is expected
between Generals Sherman and Hood (the latter, as
I foreshadowed in my last letter, the successor of
Johnston) within four miles of the city of Atalanta.
The expectation in well-informed quarters here is
that the decisive battle, of which Atlanta is the prize,
will be fought to-day or to morrow ; but, judging
from previous experience, I should predict that it
will be longer delayed. It is hardly conceivable
that having retreated across 130 miles of most de-
fensible country, and abounding in natural fast.
nesses, General Johnston would have delivered
battle in the plain which surrounds Atlanta against
an enemy in intrenchmeuts. is is because I believe
Sherman to be intrenched, and, therefore, little
likely to take the aggressive, that I doubt the near
proximity of the decisive battle. The importance of
its issue to the Federals cannot be overstated. It is
hardly possible that Sherman, able as he has shown
himself to be, could retreat with a beaten army
over the 130 miles which he has so successfully and
and incomprehensibly been allowed to traverse in
his advance. The result of the fall of Atlanta upon
the Confederate cause could only be the prolonga-
tion of th© war. My belief is that the superiority
of morale possessed by Johnston's army over Sher-
man's is almost as marked as the superiority of
Lee's over Grant's ; but it is asserted by Johnston's
partisans in this town that the estimate of the
strength of his army, which is accepted in high
quarters here, is grossly exaggerated. The general,
and I have nu doubt the correct, impression is that
there never has been anything like the disparity
between Johnston and Sherman that existed at the
commencement of May between Grant and Lee.
The displacement of General Johnston, and the sub-
stitution in his place of General Hood, is a step
which may lead to momentous consequences. It has
not been without much anxie'y that this step has
been resolved on ; and, in addition to much cool
bravery, General Hood has the recommendation of
experience under General Lee, and of the advice of
General Gustavus -a. Smith, a very competent offi-
cer, who is Hood's intimate friend, and who, though
shriniiing from responsibility himself, is about as
capable an adviser as could be desired.

It is understood that General Bragg has lately
gone to the %Vest, armed with the full confidence
of President Davis, to assist General Hood, and will
thence proceed to the Mississippi River, in order to
promote the passage from the western to the
eastern bank of General Kirby Smith and many of
the men who triumphed last spring over General
Banks. It is obvious that if a considerable portion
of Kirby Smith's army is brought across the Mis-
sissippi, and escapes the Federal gunboats which
patrol the mighty stream, a considerable difference
in the relations of the armies following Sherman
and Hood will be established. My impression is
that General Kirby Smith, if he crosses the Missis-
sippi, will effect his passage not far from Memphis,
and will be apt to attack the bases of General Sher•
man's operations at Nashville and Caattancoga.
Two of the most active and efficient officers in the
Confederate service, Generals Stephen D. Lee and
Forrest, are detained in Northern Mississippi by
the necessity imposed upon them of watching a
large body of Federals who are striving to march
frcm Memphis to reinforce Sherman before Atlanta,
and who have already received a slight defeat at
Tupelo. It will be remembered that, with less than
4,000 men, Forrest in May last scattered to the
winds a similar force to that which is now advan-
cing through Mississippi under General Wash.
burne, and which, numbering in strength 10,000
men, was then under the command of General
Sturgis, It is difficult for those unacquainted
with this continent to follow not only the operations
of the trunk armies under Lee and Hood, but also the
movements of legs and arms—as for instance of
Early in the neighbourhood of Washington, ofKirby
Smith on the Mississippi, and elsewhere of S. D.
Lee and Forrest. If the map of the once United
States exhibits still the similitude of a seething plain
covered with molten lava, and coursed over by in-
carnate fiends, there are very patent indications
that upon both sides, the supply of combatants is
waning low, and that, unless the most strenuous
efforts are put forth by the Federals, the war can-
not be much longer prolonged. Is the temper of
the Northern people such as to admit of success
attending these efforts ? The answer to this question
can be given better in New York or London than
in Richmond, encempassed as it is by the prejudices
and embittered by the venom which spring from
fratricidal strife, but upon the correctness of the
answer depends the solution of the problem in
which England is chiefly interested,—will the
approaching autumn bring this weary strife to a
close, or is au other winter of trial and privation in
store for the Confederate States ? The more I see of
this American war the more inscrutable does any
futura event except the certainty of plenary indes
pendence fur these much-enduring Southerners
appear to me ; and I must decline to hazard specu-
lation upon a subject which I am convinced is far
beyond the ken of .any man in the Confederate
States.

iip
advises from Hamburg the price of gold is 425 per mark
and the short exchang cin London is 13.51 per £1
standard gold at the Eng ash Mint price is, therefore, about
3-10ths per cent, awe; in. London than in Hamburg.

The Prospect of Peace,

(bon the _lndex.)

Our readers will acquit U 3 of having ever been
unduly sanguine in our appreciations of the events
of the American war. While we have never for an
instant doubted the ultimate triumph of Confederate
independence, and while we have seldom been de-
ceived, even transiently, by the boastful impostures
of Federal newspapers and diplomatic documents,
we may modestly claim the credit of having been
substantially correct in the few predictions we have
ventured, and of never having encouraged false
hopes of peace based upon either the exhaustion of
the North, its financial collapse, its return to reason,
or even the successes of the Southern arms. We
have consistently held to the conviction that the
war, left to its own course, whatever might be its
vicissitudes, must be a long one ; that no influence
from within, at least during the time of Mr. Lin-
coln's admiLiitration, would be potent enough to
end it; and that the only hope of shortening this
fated period lay in the wiedom and justice of Euro-
pean Powers, if, by recognising au incoatestible
political fact they had exchanged a false for a true
neutrality. Within the last two years and a half
this only hope seemed several times on the point of
realisation. To-day none but a visionary wilt deny
that the idea of recognition is practically less pre-
sent to men's minds than it was twelve months ago.
Whether this arises from the frequent disappoint-
ment of well-founded expectations, or from a
strengthening conviction that the South now stands
in less need than formerly of even such moral aid
from abroad, we need not here inquire. Certain it
is that the South itself has long ceased to expect,
scarcely to desire, recognition; and in inverse pro-
portion has grown the proud confidence in its own
Heaven.aided ability to accomplish the great work
of national salvation. Yet at this very moment,
when we once more acknowledge the fallacy of
the only hope upon which we had heretofore
dwelt seriously, we are able to say with all
calmness and soberness, that the prospects of
speedy peace were never so promising—so almost
absolutely certain. It is our sincere be-
lief that, unless some great disaster befalls the Con-
federate arms before the 29th of this month, the
Democratit party then assembling in Chicago will
nominate a peace candidate for the presidency, and
within three months after there will bean armistice.

It is not because the military situation presents
unprecdented features that we stake our judgment
upon so bold a predition. Another Confederate in-
vasion might possibly end in another Sharpsburg or
Gettysburg. Another period of reciprocal inactivity
might ensue, affording time for recruiting another
army in Ireland and Germany. Nor is it because
the financial condition so unmistakably indicates
that the bottom of the nation's pocket has been
reached. Federal finances have so often defied
rational calculations, so many grave arises have been
passed—not safel, but still passed—so buoyant and
sanguine is the American temperament, that we
would hesitate to deny the possibility of another
miracle, and, given a drawn battle or two, or some
illusory success, we are not sure but even this last
crisis might be tided over, and the inevitable ruin
carefully concealed by " shoddy" flowers from pub-
lic view, might be staved off for another season.
These embarrassments have become periodical
ever since the battle of Bull Run, aggravating with
each year. To a cool observer at a distance they
seemed fatal in 1861 ; they were worse in
1862; still worse in 1863, It is not because they
are worst in 1864 that we look for peace, but be-
cause in 1861 they correspond with embarrassments
of quite another kind—with a quadrennial civil
revolution which, even in ordinary times, puzzled
and perplexed the acutest understanding of Euro-
pean statesmanship. The curious feature of the
A.nahrican federative system is its aff,ctation of
mathematical mechanism. The Federal Govern-
ment is wound up, warranted to run four years.
It may run as wildly fast or as tamely slow as the
materials of its clock-work will admit, but at the
striking of a certain hour its motive power is ex-
hausted. At one second after twelve o'clock on
March 4 the four years' king is dead—four years'
life to the new king. Alas! towever, for human
ingenuity, there is an interval between the winding
up again and the running down, and this interval
is an interregnum, The new king is elected in
November, the old one dies in March. In the four
months intervening, unless he happens to be his
own successor for another " term," the courtiers
desert the setting sun to worship tl.e rising one.
The Federal Government has only a nominal head.
At noon of Mach 4 of next year Mr. Lincoln,
unless re-elected, loses the last semblance of power;
four months and four days earlier, on the first
Enesday of November next, the entire substance.
In the meanwhile the semblance and the substance
remain irremediably disunited, and therefore dor-
mant.

How slim are Mr. Lincoln's chances of
re-election may be seen by the indecent alacrity
with which the rats are scampering away
from his ship. Already he is opposed by
a candidate of hie own party, one who is not one,"7
the first love of that party—its candidate when
Lincoln was not yet known outside his own village
—but one who represents that very section of the
party which by its rabid radicalism leavened the
rest, and in the heat of the fermentation flung Mr
Lincoln into power. Even the convention which
lately nominated Mr Lincoln, composed as it was of
his own office-holders, deemed it necessary' to save
the appearance of self-respect by insulting him in
his Mexicen policy. The most important com-
mittee of his own Congress has denounced him for
the attempted usurpation of arbitrary power for
the purpose of mar,ufaclurtng fictitious votes from
the "rtbelUons" States ; and the two Houses
of Congress, as one body, have given practical
effect to this denunciation by a legisletive enact-
ment that the votes of the "rebellious" States
shall Lot count in the ensuing election. In
open feud with his Congress, at variance
with his party, deserted by his mercenary friends,
ridiculed by the press, despised by the public, his
favourite generals defeated in the field, his pet
schemes ending in disaster, Mr. Lincoln is not a
very formidable competitor for the presidency. Add
to this that the Democratic opposition, keenly alive
to the possible turns of fortune in their favour, have
adjourned the nomination of their candidate to the
decision of the issue of the summer's campaign,
fixing it at a date barely eight weeks prior to the
November election. At that election the success-
ful candidate requiees, since the votes of one-third
of the States are counted out, a numerical majority
of the actual votes cast, such as no president since
Washington has ever obtained.
The personal triumph or humiliation of Mr.
Abraham Lincoln is, however, merely an incident—
and in no sense an element—in our calculations for
peace. If the war against the South is to be
prosecuted, we prefer him ES President of the
United States to any one of the four millions of
adult males in the population of Federal America.
Our prognostication assts upon the fact that a new
idea has entered the Northern mind, and that this
idea is the only practicable bridge from war to
peace. This idea scores of newspapers, which before
were eagerly clamouring for a more vigorous pro-
secution of the war, have within the last few weeks
taken up with utterance more or less distinct. It
is in the minds and mouths of men of all parties,
defended or denounced, but familiar to all. It is
reflected in the public correspondence of the Euro-
pean press from America ; it is sharply mapped out
in nine-tenths of the private letters which rill the
American mail-bags. It is like the confused sound
of many voices; unless a providential event hushes
it, it will have swollen, ere our printed pages
reach the other side of the Atlantic, into the
deafening chorus of millions of men. It is an idea
all the more powerful because it flatters American
vanity without being altogether chimerical and
=practicable. It is an idea which implies
solution, and not defeat. It is an idea which grati-
fies vague popular longings for revenge, and which
yet promises solid material advantages.
This idea, in which we recognise the mustard-
seed of a lasting and prosperous peace, may, when
stripped of its surplusage of words and extravagan-
cies of drapery, be succinctly described somewhat
as follows. The North says to itself —" In the event
of success (and no true Northerner permits himself
to doubt of eventual success), what shall we gain ?