The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 1, 1863.

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Sold in Bottles, 3s. Bd., at the Retail Houses in London ; by
the Agents in the principal towns in England ; or wholesale
at

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Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"Kinahan's LL Whisky."

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The last of the plates with which the exterior of
the iron frigate Achilles is covered was successfully
axed in its place yesterday afternoon, and the
vessel is now encased throughout in armour-plates
from stein to stern, the number of plates being 338,
and their aggregate weight upwards of 1,000 tons.
The plates vary in thickness from 4tin. on the
broadsides to 3in, at the stern. On Saturday Mr.
E. J. Reed, the chief constructor of the navy,
visited Chatham Dockyard, accompanied by Mr.
R. Abethell, from the Admiralty, and spent some
time in inspecting nearly every part of the Achilles.
The frigate is so far advanced in her construction
that she will be in all respects ready to leave the
dock on the 24th inst., provided there is sufficient
water to float her out on that date.

The screw steam sloop Royalist, 11, left Ply-
outhSaundon Saturday,evening for-her destine-

tion.

The screw steam gunboat Leveret, 3 (tender to '
the Dauntless), from Southampton, with men, ar-
rived at Plymouth on Sunday.
The screw steam frigate Constance, 50, advanced
to the first division of the steam reserve, was re-
moved yesterday from the Prince's Dock in Devon-
port-yard, and placed at the North Jetty to com-
plete her fitment.
Her Majesty's ships Conqueror and Waterloo are
appointed to call at Plymouth to embark seamen
and marines for distribution on the China station.
The transport Colgrain, from London, with troops
for Algoa Bay, was off Plymouth on Sunday.
His Imperial French Majesty's line-of battle ship
Entreprenante, bound up channel, was off Plymouth
on Sunday. Wind, south-east.
An Admiralty order has been received at Chat-
ham dockyard as well as the whole of the other
naval establishments at that port to be closed on
the day after Christmas. Their lordships have
directed that the day thus granted is to be made
up by the mechanics and artisans working over-
time.
The War Department transport Marlborough
went alongside the Ordnance-wharf, Chatham, yes-
terday, and commenced shipping the Armstrong
and other guns for the screw corvette Fuwn, 17,
100 horse power, which is being fitted for the first
division of the steam reserve, in readiness for im-
mediate commission.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Commander George Palmer to
the Aurora; Commander W. A. Smith to the Royal
Adelaide ; Lieut. Lord Charles T. M. D. Scott to
the Victoria and Albert, vice Parry ; and W. F.
Woods, clerk, supernumerary, to the Fisgard.

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times)
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, Oct. 28.
To one who has passed a month in a Western
Confederate camp, especially in such weather as
has scourged the present October, Augusta is a
Capua indeed. A clean bed with actual sheets,
plenty of water to wash in, decent food, a table to
write on, candles, and many more similar luxuries,
can be adequately prized only by him who has long
floundered in the mud of Gen. Bragg's camp, and
realised the manifold privations which are so nobly
endured by each Confederate army.. His enjoy-
ment will be enhanced by the recollection of the
rai,road which connects Atlanta with Chattanooga,
and of the mud road which divides Chickamauga
Station horn Missionary Ridge. In an extensive
experience of American mire, I have never seen
anything to equal the road by which supplies for
Gen. Bragg's army are now " waggoued." Fortu-
nately its length is only seven miles; but, in spite
of the asseverations of Crimean officers when
similar scenes are pointed out to them, it may be
questioned whether the famous seven miles from
Balaklava were ever half so bad. As you wade
through it on horseback with the mud up to your
girths, waggon after waggon salutes you, "stalled"
(as it is here named), or mired, in some hole rather
more bottomless than usual, the mules, according
to the fashion of their race, refusing after one un-
successful tug to try again, while by the roadside
dozens of their defunct brethren and of bony horses,
the carcases of which lend anything but fragrance
to the breeze, serve as a warning to their survivors
against undue exertion. Along this same road
wade wearily forward the long files of recruits ter of
returning convalescents on their way to the front,
up to their knees in slime, with little prospect of
having dry feet for a week to come, as the heavens
seem permanently to have dissolved in liquid, and
camp-fires under such circumstances are all but im-
possible. Need I say that fever and ague, dysentery
and pneumonia, are rife among the Confederates and
among the hapless Federals who face them ? And
yet the indications still are that neither Gen, Bragg
nor his opponent contemplate an immediate move
on a large scale. It is true that the condition of the
roads is such as greatly to impede locomotion ; but
this difficulty might be mitigated by dividing the
waggons and sending them along several different
roads. It is the concentration of waggons upon the
Chicamauga road which has reduced it to its pre-
sent fearful condition.
But if the waggon road is appalling, let not the
traveller imagine that his troubles are at an end
when he gets to the railroad. At present the main
and most important function of this railroad is to
carry provisions and ordnance to Bragg's army.
Travellers are clearly a nuisance not to be encoure
aged under the circumstances. Accordingly, at the
little wooden shanty which is dignified with the
name of "Chicamauga Station," let no one expect
to find a passenger car, distributed into those low-
backed seats which suit the American taste, but are
execrated by all Europeans. A long line of box cars,
much resembling one of Pickford's freight trains in
England, but individually much larger and dirtier, are
in waiting,and in one of them you may consider your-
self lucky if you can lay your blanket on the floor,
and escape under shelter from the cold pelting rain.
As to the question whether you will start in one
hour, in six, or in 12, it argues great inexperience
in Confederate railroad travelling if you exhibit any
inquisitiveness on the subject. You will be told
there is no "schedule" or time table according to
which locomotion is directed, but the trains are said
to be "running wild''—which means that so soon
as a train arrives at Chicamauga, and it suits the con-
venience of its conductor to start again for Atlanta,
he " puts out," trusting to the steam-whistle
an
probable.t he careless of the engine and to the enormous lamp which
glares forward at the foot of each engine's chimney
requ
to avert the collision which the single line of rails
d
economyaa ofs
arethe
thetrainsdn
a accidents
ire
endtea upon
r only
too
these railroads, the only wonder is that they are
not ten times more frequent.
To begin with, there
is the single line of rails; then there are the trestle
bridges over the innumerable rivers and creeks,
which are carried away by every " freshet " or flood
•in the stream, and which creak and tremble as the
train passes in such a fashion as would in England
elicit 100 letters per diem to the limes, from
agonised passengers. Then, thirdly, there is the
defective state of the rails, which are constantly
and in many plac:s worn down to a thread not
thicker than a lady's little finger. Other possi-
bilities of accident there are by dozens, arising
from euch casualties as cows and hogs upon the
track; but I have said enough to justify the pre-
vailing sentiment that it is safer to go into action

than to take a long journey by rail in the Con-
federacy. The passenger, once started for Atlanta;
will before he arrives there, although the distance
is only 130 miles, probably have time for exten-
sive self-communion. Upon my journey up, and
upon my journey down, I was, in each instance,
two nights and the better part of two days in the
train ; but I have heard of luckless passengers who
passed four days and nights in the cars, and who, if
they had started for Atlanta on foot, might reason-
ably have expected to get there on their own legs
more quickly than they were actually delivered by
steam, without the misery of passing four nights in
a box-car. It will be imagined that a passenger's
sufferings for food are much the same as he would
expect if he took a trip into Timbuotoo. Parched
corn—that is to say, maize fried or browned in a
skillet or frying-pan, at some shanty by the side of
the track—commands a fabulous price. A tin cup
full of water is worth more than champagne in a
French cafe ; a little bit of cold beefsteak, and a
morsel of corn bread, are given away by a charitable
quartermaster (who is pretty sure to have with him
a fair share of creature comforts) as though he were
distributing diamonds. Eventually you are pretty
sure to arrive at Atlanta at four in the morning. A
train starts for Augusta, the haven of all your
hopes, at six. You rush through the Cimmerian
obscurity of the streets to the Provost-Marshal's
to get your pass viit,,%4aa, all the risks of
plunging headlong into the cellars or into the ex-
cavation made for the foundation of a house, and
at last weary, filthy, hungry, thirsty beyond ex
pression, you embark for Augusta, the possessor of
all the comforts I have described. It will be
imagined that a moderate hotel is under the cir-
cumstances classed in your mind with the Claren-
don, or the Metropole at Geneva, or any of the most
famous hostelries known to you on earth.
It seems to me hardly possible that these two
great antagonistic Western armies can lie much
longer in their present position. I believe that the
Federals would be well satisfied to winter at Chat-
tanooga, and to make it the base for their spring
campaign, if they possessed the railroad which
comes in frem the West, and communicates with
Bridgeport ; but from this they are entirely inter-
cepted by the Confederate possession of Lookout
Mountain, Which not only dominates the railroad
running at its base, on the same side of the Ten-
nessee River as the mountain itself, but also enables
the Southern sharpshooters to make the road on the
other side of the Tennessee so hot as to be impassable
for waggons in the daytime. It is my belief that Gen.
Bragg's great object in adhering to his present posi-
tion is to make the Federal tenure of Chattanooga
during the winter without Lookout Mountain an im-
possibility. Bat if lam not mistaken, he will have to
fight somewhere, or to relax his grip on the moun-
tain. Your readers will have learnt, long before the
arrival of this letter, thatGen.Rusencranz has joined
the noble army of decapitated Federal generals, and
that Gen. Grant now reigns in his stead. A month
ago I should have thought that the loss of Gen.
Rosencranz to the Federals was tantamount to the
gain by the Confederates of the two great victories
in the field; but, considering his inexplicable
strategy before the battle of Chicamauga, and his
manifest want of ability as regards handling his
troops on the battlefield, it is hard to maintain that
the prevailing opinion about him held in the Con-
federate army by every one except Gen. Bragg, and
which likens him to Gen. Pope, is not correct. The
substitution of Gen. Grant makes it more than ever
likely that the communication with Chattanooga
from the west—by the railroads which run from
Nashville and Memphis to Stevenson (close to B ridge-
port), and meeting there, sweep on together to Chat-
tanooga—will, if possible, be forcibly opened by the
Federals. For some time, past one corps of Gen.
Grant's army has been busily engaged in repairing
the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which has
long been unavailable to either belligerent, and by
which Grant obviously desires to throw Federal
reinforcements in from the Mississippi River. A
body of Confederate cavalry, under General Stephen
D. Lee, have done their utmost to obstruct the
Federal labourers, and but for another move of
General Grant's, there is reason to think the efforts of
General Stephen D. Lee would have been seconded
by the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, which
would have moved up from Enterprise, in Mississippi,
with this object. But in order to engage General
Johnston's attention, General Grant instructed
another corps of his army—that commanded by
Macpherson, who is an eminent military engineer,
and one of the best officers in the Federal service—
to strike in upon Canton, to the north of Jackson, so
as to withdraw notice from the Memphis and
Charleston Railroad. It is certain that in his opera-
tions against General Macpherson,General Johnston
has had the best of it; but whether the latter has
cleared the country of the Federals sufficieutly to
admit of his going northwards and joining Stephen
D. Lee, lam unable to say. Another indication
that the Federals are in earnest about connecting
Chattanooga with the Mississippi River may be
found in the fact that they are steadily persevering
in rebuilding the bridge across the Tennessee at
Bridgeport, a long and massive structure, which was
destroyed long ago by General A. Sydney johns=
when he fell back from Bowling-green before the
battle of Shiloh. Altogether it seems to me pro-
bable that General Bragg will have to fight
another great battle before Christmas upon ground
somewhere between his present position and Bridge-
port. In addition to General S. D. Lee's cavalry
there is another large body of Confederate horse-
men somewhere in Northern Alabama, which has
recently returned from its successful ride under
General Wheeler round Rosencranz's rear, and which
will make itself again felt before long. The disposis
tion of the Western Federal forces since the decapi-
tation of Rosencranz is, if I am not mistaken, some-
thing as follows : =At Vicksburg, and operating
towards Canton, is the corps of General Macpher-
son; along the line of the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad are two heavy divisions—one of them,
General Sherman's, engaged in protecting the work-
men who are repairing the line ; at Stevenson, in
Alabama, an important point, being, as I have
said, the junction of the two railroads from
is General Hooker,
Nashville and Memphis, and a kind of depot for
thewit
with
ray least Chattanooga,asme so think, two Federal
corps ; at Chattanooga is General Thomas, with,
in all probability, at least four corps under him ;
army
at
one, or
at London, halfway between Knoxville and Chat-
tanooga, is a small force of Yankees, which has
lately suffered the loss of 700 prisoners by a suc-
cessful dash on them of Confederate cavalry under
Colonel Dibrell ; at Knoxville is General Burnside,
with probably two corps under him. The disposi-
tion of Western Confederate forces exhibits the
large army of General Bragg, which faces General
Thomas in Chattanooga; it exhibits also General
Johnston at Enterprise, acting against Macpherson,
and General Samuel Jones in Western Virginia,
acting against Burnside. It seems tolerably cer-
tain that no serious move will be made by either
party in the immediate neighbourhood of Chatta-
nooga, but that the points of collision will most
likely be in the neighbourhood of Stevenson and of
London. But during the last month I have seen so
clearly the difficulties which beset an advancing
army on either side in such a country:that it is im-
possible not doubly to regret that an opportunity
such as the battle o' Chicamauga offered to the
Confederates, and which Would, if rightly seized,
have disposed of half their embarrassments, should
have been so deplorably thrown away. That great
efforts will be made by the Federals to hold the line
of the Tennessee River from Knoxville to Bridge-
port, and the line of the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad from Bridgeport to the Mississippi River,
will bo palpable to all who are at the pains of
casting a glance at a good map. If the war be
terminated upon the uti
Pessidetis principle, the
possession of this line will assign to the Federals
the whole of Tennessee 14114 N.entuoty ; secondly,

if the war continues, of the highest importune
and coal and
months coppera
g o the to exclude the Confederates from the nitre caves
mines
loss o f
of
this Eastern
region
w Tennessee.ou ld
Twelve
have been most momentous to the South. At pre-
sent, with upwards of 1,000 pieces of field artillery
of their own manufacture or import in their bands,
and with all the pieces taken from their enemy,
which cannot fall greatly short of 1,000 more, it is
obvious that the loss of copper, needed for the
manufacture of their favourite 12 pounder Napoleon
gun, will not be severely felt by the Confederates,
even though it should prove permanent.
I was surprised to find, during my recent visit to
General Bragg's camp, unmistakeable evidence that
the field artillery of the Western Confederate army
is superior to that of the army recently commanded
by General Rosencranz. Among the 50 guns cap-
tured by the Confederates at Chicamauga there is a
large number of 6 pounders, which have long ago
been condemned by the Confederate ordnance
authorities as too small for field service, and which
have altogether disappeared from General Lee's
army in Virginia. A few 6 pounders are still in
the service of General Bragg's army, but they
have almost disappeared, and are being replaced
by the 12 pounder Napoleon. Probably by next
spring the 6 pounders will have been altogether
banished from the Confederate armies, and will be
found doing duty along the banks of the Mississippi,
a service for which their lightness admirably adapts
them. I was struck by the superior organisation of
the artillery in General Lee's as compared with
that in General Bragg's army. It is true that upon
neither side has the artillery been so great a feature
in these Western battles as it ha's in the battles of
Virginia. But the organisation and distribution of
the artillery, not into batteries of four or six guns,
but into battalions, which comprise four or five bat-

teries, or, in other words, 20 guns, has worked ad
mirably in Virginia, and was, I believe, chiefly the
result of General Longstreet's advice. The battery
organisation is still retained in General Bragg's
army, except in that portion of it which is under
the command of General Longstreet. In General
Lee's army to each corps are assigned five bat-
talions of artillery, or, in round numbers, 100 guns,
whereof two battalions are held in reserve. It will
be imagined that in the gigantic battles of this con-
tinent, which extend over miles, and are contested
by enormous armies, very little effect is produced
by the opening of a battery of four or six guns. But
the simultaneous discharge of 18 or 20 guns in a
well chosen position hes never failed to make itself
sensibly felt; and to a measure of this kind—l mean
the opening by General Buckner of 12 pieces upon
the Federal column, which during the battle of
Chicamauga was thrown from the Federal left to
the Federal right—General Longstreet mainly
attributes the success which he gained on that day.
I shall defer until my return to Richmond any
comments upon the recent operations by which
General Lee has run General Meade into his rat
holes before Washington, and has broken up the
Orange and Alexandria Railroad (recently rebuilt
by the Federals) for many miles. But I may re-
mark, en passant, that October, 1863, does not seem
to have done more for the Federals than October,
1862, the first month which I passed within the
acteristics of their warfare,
that Gen. Gilmore is at this
limits
eavonef
rt
yiht
we
biCi
eeo
rues fhte
ohd
wee rcnahc
ayr. Inaction or retreat have
hour one whit nearer to the reduction of Charleston
than he was 100 days ago. lam assured that the
defensive works upon Sullivan's Island have grown
as rapidly as the Federal works for offence upon Morris
Island, and not one man in the insurrectionary States
seems now to enteetain any fears that Charleston,
even though burnt to the ground, will ever pass out
of the Confederate grasp. Huge reinforcements,
we are told, have joined the Federal armies in the
West, and they are trumpeted to the world in the
Northern journals as likely to make General Grant
invincible; but I have lately witnessed how silently,
steadily, and unostentatiously, Gen. Bragg's force
has been recruited, and I have more faith in an
army which boasts so little, but fights and endures
hardships so unflinchingly.
A long conversation with Colonel Rains, the
superintendent of the Government Powder Mills in
Augusta, and also the manager of the Arsenal of
Construction and of the Cannon Foundry in this city,
has taught me more than ever to admire the inge-
nuity and the energy which the Confederates have
brought to bear upon their struggle. Starting with-
out Nashville, which soon passed
out of their hands—without any large establish-
ments for making machinery, and without a single
trip hammer between the Chesapeake and the Rio
Grande—deficient in iron, lead, copper, tin, all one
ex-
cept a any
small powder at mill in the Southern States,
salt-
petre, cannon, small arms, and everything save
food, the Confederates have taught the world a
lesson in regard to the impossibility of subjugating
brave and high-spirited people, which will point
many a historical moral for centuries to come.
There are two men whose names are seldom heard
in connexion with the history of this war, but who
have probably contributed more to the Confederate
success than any other persons, with the exception
of Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet—l mean Colonel
Rains and Captain Brooke. Both of them modest
and unobtrusive men, absorbed in scientific re-
searches, inexhaustible in the fertility of their
resources, indefatigable in energy, they have pre-
sented during the last 30 months a record for the
study of their countrymen which will everywhere
be read with profit whenever the history of this
great revolution is fully and fairly told. I have
seldom had the advantage of encountering 'any man
whose conversation was so instructive and interest-
ing as that of Colonel Rains. His recapitulation of
the difficulties which he has had to encounter, of
the deficiencies which he has every day to supple-
ment and circumvent by ingenuity, and of the
results of his work, as evinced by his contributions
to the Confederate armies, is such as to awaken'
amazement. In a former letter written some months
ago from this town I gave a short sketch of the
Augusta gunpowder mill. From that time up to
the present hour its efficiency has been constantly
on the increase, and as evidence of its prolific work-
ing I may mention that since its opening on the
27th of April, 1862, Colonel Rains has sent a
million and a half pounds of powder to Richmond
alone, exclusive of his contributions to Vicksburg,
Charleston, Mobile, and the armies of Generals
Bragg and Johnston. From his Arsenal of Con-
struction he has sent out 6,000,000 cartridges for
small arms and 50,000 round shot and
say nothing of caps, hand grenades,!and torpedoes'
From his cannon foundry he is continually tar!:
ing out 12 pounder Napoleons, 20 pounder Parrots,already
and howitzers; but the wealth of artillery
e that he has
possessed by the Confederates is sue,'
with the
ceased to produce Napoleon gunsd is
rapidity which which at one time characterise.having been one
ceedings, his rate of production . ld of the
The daily yield
Napoleon gun per diem. of 8,400 b. a
rate
powder mill is now at the.on
dnai
tye,l
ywh shell, to
required, be indefi-
if occasion
_ery
increased.
with every important station
surfeited with powder,
in the Confederacy already
the hands of Generals Beau-
with large supplies
ieh mi
intae, and at Mobile and Wil-
regard, Bragg, Johns
ee, of
course, draws his sup.
T
Minton (Genera
ond), and with tNo other powder
plies from Itichin
operation, lithe
importance
mills in active it is of
that even this rate of production should be
The ordinary consumption cf powder
maintained.
in the Confederacy is rated at 2,0001 b. but
is, of course, greatly increased by such sieges as
those of Vicksburg and Charleston, which bring up
the average to 10,0001bs. a day, occasioned toy the
large demands of the heavy artillery employed. It
is a singular commentary upon this war, that a
nation which two years ago produceer not a pound
of powder, should now think nothing of a daily
consumption of 10,0001 b., produced entirely from
their owa resources. It is evident that obstacles