The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-23 00:00:00

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

(From the Times' Special tiorrespow?ent.)
RICHMOND, Dt.c. 20, 1862.
A week has p issed since the great battle of Fre-
dericksburg—the smoke has slowly cleared away—
the Yankee, reeling backward in spite of the threats,
the entreaties, and the promises of their officers,
have, for the first and only time in the history of
this war, acknowledged instantaneously a crushing
defeat, and extricated themselves from a most peri-
lous position by retreating precipitately across the
Rappahannock. How perilous that position was it
is obvious that the Confederate Generals,who hoped
against hope that the 14thor 15th December would
witness a renewal of the Federal attack, did not at
the moment fullyrealise. But summing up the results
of the late bat le, it is sufficient to say that enough
has been gained by it, and although it is conceivable
that on the night of the 13th, or the afternoon of the
14th or 15th, a general advance of the Confederate
lines might have turned the Fade rat rout into what is
kno ,vra on this continent as "a B ill's Bluff affair,"
stil it is more in accordance with the weii-known
humanity of such men as Gens. Lee and Jackson
that not, one life, even the life of an enemy, should
be unia,:cE-ssarily sacrificed, when already a sufficient
lessen had been taught to their foe.
That the lesson is sufficient, the reports from the
North, which will reach England long before this
letter, will probably satisfy even the most sceptical.
It is not my province to call attention to them, or
to point out that the wail of a nation in its agony,
which ought to have made itself heard at the end of
last August, is beginning to ascend in tones distinctly
audible. There may be crtsades against Vicksburg,
against Charlestown, Mobile, possibly against the
Texan coast, and there will certainly be a Etrong
irruption of Western troops into the Mississippi
Valley ; but if I am not mistaken,
it is not too early
to prophesy that against Richmond itself no North-
ern army
will again be led. How hopeless was the
Northern prospect of crushing out all Southern re-
sistance, until 10 or 12 States should lie prostrate at
the foot of New' England, it required a residence of
not more than 24 hours in the Confederacy to satisfy
any reasonable and impartial spectator. And if, at
this stage of the war, it is imagined that the capture
end destruction of any number of seaboard cities,
the reopening of the Mississippi to iron clad gun-
boats, and some apocryphal successes in Arkansas,
Texas, or Mississippi, can arrest the attainment of
Southern independence, then may we hope to live
until an expedition is launched in balloons against
the moon.

My last letter brought the narrative of events

before Fredericksburg up to the night of Saturday,
December 13. It would be idle to pretend that
upon that night the magnitude of the success which
had been gained by the Confederates was fully
gauged and comprehended by their Generals. It
was hoped and believed that Sunday, the 14th,
would witness a renewal of the Federal attack; and
the night of the 13th and the subsequent nights wore
busily employed by the Confederates in strength-
ening their fortifications and throwing up fresh
earthworks on the Confederate centre and right.
" If I had only thrown up these works before," ex-
claimed Gen. Lee two or three days after the battle,
" I shou d have saved many valuable lives." That
a renewal of the Federal attack would have been
most disastrous to the assailants it is now hardly

necessary to state. It was felt by the Confederate
Generals that after Saturday's experience no serious
assault would again be directed against Marye's
Heights, and ample provisions were made for meet-
ing the heavy onslaught which it was expected
would on the Leorrow be made against Gen. Jack-
son's corps on the Confederate right. Never were
the spirits of that General more ecstatic than dur-
ing the fight on Saturday, and while his antago-
nists appeared to " mean business" on the morrow.
But it must be confessed that, while the bulk of the
Confederate army believed in the renewal of the
battle on the 14th, there were not wanting Confe-
derate Generals whose prescience told them that
troops so roughly handled as the Yankees would
be little apt to resume the offensive. Among others,
on Saturday night, Gen. Stuart hazarded the predic-
tion that there would be no fresh attack by the
Federals on the Confederate lines. A lingering wish
to direct his Horse Artillery there and then against
the enemy's flank was probably uppermost that
night in the General's mind.
When Sunday, the 14th, came, it brought full
confirmation of Gen. Stuart's words. The day was
clear and calm and warm as its predecessor, but
totally devoid of haze or fog. The Yankees, on their
left and centre, had passed the night in the plain,
where darkness overtook them, without blankets,
without fires, with only half-rations. The day wore
away, and witnessed no Federal advance. There
was heavy skirmishing between the pickets in front
of Gen. A. P. Hill's division, and occasionally the
boom of a heavy piece of artillery, fired from one
or the other side of the river, struck upon the ear,
and sounded as a strange contrast to the incessant
and continuous roar of the day before. On the night
of the 14th prophecies that the Yankees had had
enough of it, and would get back across the river
as best they could, were more abundant, and
when the morning of the 15th broke and still the
Federals failed to advance, it became incontestable
that the Federal army was in a perilous strait, with
a deep river and three pontoon bridges behin 1, and
with a victorious and elated enemy and 300 pieces
of artillery in front.

As the afternoon of the 15th advanced there was
the same coquetting on the part of the Federals as
to asking permission to bury their dead and carry
off their wounded as had been displayed by them on
the field of Sharpsburg. At Sharpsbnrg, as had
been many times previously remarked, the ground
on which the battle was fought was held by the
Confederate,. To have sent a flag of truce and asked
permission to bury his dead would have seriously
discredited Gen. M'Clellaa's repeated telegrams that
he had gained a great victory. It became necessary,
therefore, to have recourse to artifice, and a flag of
truce was sent in by one of the inferior Federal
Generals, which was subsequently disavowedd and
disclaimed, or perhaps was never re,oni
Gen. M'CielLin himself. Such is believedg heres 6 byo
have been the secret history of the Sharpsburg
of truce. Something of the same kind was attemptedg
on the afternoon of December 15. There was every
disposition in the Confederate Generals to strain a
point to alleviate the misery of the wounded Fede-
rals who had now laic three nights on the field ;
but Gen. Lee's resolution that no flag of truce
should be accepted unless sent by Gen. Burnside
to himself was final and inexorable. A flag sent in,
as was believed, by the Federal General Birney was
therefore rejected. Every possible effort was made
by the Confederates to relieve the sufferings of those
Wounded men whom their companions had not carried
off the field ; but, as is usual on such occasions, the
individual eases of misery were terrible and heart-
rending. Such a scene as a battle-field presents during
the first night after a battle it would baffle any
mortal pea to describe. In addition to the agonised
cries for water, and to the groans of tortured and
dying men, may be heard voices, nstantly growing
u
fainter and fainter, shouting
the names and
numbers of their regiments in the hope that some of
their comrades may be within hearing, or that
o a
party from their regiment may
to fetch in its wounded men—" 14th Massachunt
Bette !" " 104th Pennsylvania !" 47th North Caro Etta!" such aro some of the shouts which ring
through the night air, and are never likely to be
forgotten by those on whose ear they fall. In the
end no flag of truce for burying the dead was on this
occasion adjusted until the morning of Wednesday,
December 17, when the Federals sent over a large
body of men to bury their numerous slain. The
wounded were by permission carried off on the
afternoon of Monday, the 15th.
But in the meantime, on the night of Monday,
it wasdetermined by the Federal generals not to risk
another day without putting the river between
themselves and their victorious foe. A more favour-
able night for their purpose cannot be conceived.
On the afternoon of Monday the wind began to
rise, and by seven in the evening and during the
night it blew a hurricane from the south, so that
all sound from the Federal army was carried away
to the north in a direction contrary to the position
occupied by the Confederates. At the same time
there fell a deluge of rain. Great credit is cer-

tain]y due to the Federal generals for passing
nearly 100,000 men and all their cannon in one
night across three pontoon bridges without accident
or confusion. if the purpose of the Federals had
been penetrated, and the immense con e ntration of
troops in the streets of Fredericksb g had been
known to Gen. Lee, no doubt a few ehells thrown
into the town might have caused considerable
slaughter, and occasioned great confusion among
the dense masses of the enemy. But when the
morning of the 16th dawned great was the surprise
of Gen. Lee and of the Confederates to find that not
one Yankee, save those who lay stiff and stark, and
a few wounded men in Fredericksburg, too badly
injured to bear transportation across the river, re-
mained on the southern side of the Rappahannock.
There is a certain rhyme about the King of Franee
and the manner in as hich he handled his 40,000 men
which irresistibly recurred to the memory when it
was found that Gen. Burnside and his troops were
all gone.
tNn ?
of
Gone, indeed, they were ; but
in
the fashione y
A glance at the long slo betweenpe.
itoutcleNloafrt3rheae tollliewighiheths
gFarvedeetrhi:kbsebsutrigdeaanedr
the
emfaogo
et
had been exacted for their passage of the Rappa-
hannock. A. ride along the whole length of the lines
told also a sad tale of slaughter; but when the eye
had once rested upon the fatal slope above men-
tioned the memory became fixed upon the spot; nor
for 50 years to come will that scene ever fade from
the memory of those who saw it. There, in every
attitude of death, lying so close to each other that
you might step from body to bldy, lay acres of the
Federal dead. It seemed that most of the faces which
lay nearest to Col. Walton's artillery were of the well
known Milesian type. In one small garden, not more
than half an acre in size, there were 151 corpses. I
doubt whether in any battle-field of modern times
the dead have ever lain so thick and close. By uni-
versal consent of those who have seen all the great
battles of this war, nothing like it has ever been
seen before. It is said that the morning after a vic-
tory always breaks upon naked corpses. It was not
so in this case, but the sole reason was that the pickets
of both armies swept the slope with their fire, and
that any living thing which showed upon it was the
target for a hundred bullets. But three or four
mornings after the battle it was seen that the fur-
tive hand which invariably glides into the pocket of
victory had been busily at work, and naked corpses
and others from which everything but their under
clothing had been rifled were visible in abundance.
So tremendous was the fire, chiefly emanating from
Cobb's Brigade, posted in the lane at the foot of
Marye'saleights, that even chickens in the gardens
in front fell pierced by it. It was remarked by a
Confederate General intimately acquainted with the
Federal General Sumner, who commanded the
Federal right, " Was there ever any other General
but Sumner who would have got his men into a
place in which not even chickens could live ?" But

the fire across the slope was fatal not only to men
and chickens, but also to every other living thing.
Horses by dozens were strewn along the hillside;
and occasionally a dead cow or a dead hog lay close
to the silent and too often fearfully torn and muti-
lated human bodies which everywhere met the view.
Such a sight has rarely been seen by man. It is
doubtful whether any living pen could do justice to
its horrors; but it is certain that it would be easy
to write more than any ordinary reader would care
to read. It is known that during the nights of the
13th and 14th very many bodies were carried off
and buried by the Federals; but when the party of
Federals detailed to bury their comrades had com-
pleted their t .sk it was found that under Marye's
Heights they had buried 1,493 corpses, and 800 more
on the Federal left. Computing that 3,000 Fede-
rals fell dead on the field, and adding six or seven
times that number of wounded, you may gain an
approximate estimate of the Federal loss on the 12th
December. To this must also be added upwards
of a thousand prisoners taken by the Confederates,
and all the stragglers and deserters who strayed
away from the Federal army. It is incontestable
that the 13th of December will be graven as deep
in the annals of the great Republic as is the anni-
versary of Jena upon the hearts of the Prussian
p?ople.
It remains for me to give some account of the
town of Fredericksburg, and the condition in which
it was left by its ruthless invaders. Desolate it had
appeared to me at the end of last month; how shah
I describe its appearance now ? The first impres-
sion of those who rode into its streets, and who had
witnessed the feu crenfer which the Federal guns
had poured upon it for hours upon Thursday, the
11th of December, was surprise that more damage
had not been done. But this is explained by the
fact that the Federals confined themselves amost
entirely to solid round shot, and that very few shells
were discharged into the town. Neverthless, a more
pitiable devastation and destruction of property it
would be difficult to conceive. Whole blocks of
buildings have in many places been given to the
flames. There is hardly a house through which at
least one round shot has not bored its way, and
many are riddled through and through. The Bap-
tist church is rent by a dozen great holes, while its
neighbour, the Episcopalian church, has escaped
with one. Scarcely a spot can be found on the face
of the houses which look towards the river which is
not pockmarked by bullets. Every where the houses
have been plundered from cellar to garret; all
smaller articles of furniture carried off, all larger
ones wantonly smashed. Not a drawer or =est
but was forced open and ransacked. The streets
were sprinkled with the remains of costly furniture
dragged out of the houses in the direction of the
pontoons stretched across the river. Many of
the inhabitants clung to the town, and sheltered
themselves during the shelling in cellars and
basements. Among others, it is stated that Mrs.
Slaughter, the wife of the Mayor, returned two
or three days after the bombardment to her
house, which she found ransacked and gutted. A
Federal officer offered a few words of explanation
or apology, when she replied, pointing to half a
dozen dead Federals lying within sight of her
house, " I am repaid for all I have suffered by the
sight of these." But there are sights more hor-
r.ble than the devastatiou of property, and which,
like the hillside below Marye's Heights, neither
admit of nor invite description. It must be remem-
bered that into the narrow limits of the town of
Fredericksburg four-fifths of the Federal wounded
were carried on the 13th and 14th of December.
Hardly a house or shed but was converted into a
hospital; the churches and municipal buildings
were crowded to bursting with dying and mangled
men. Shutters and boards were laid down in gar-
dens and yards, and upon them layer after layer of
wounded men was stretched. Upon the night of
the 13th the whole town was one continuous lazar-
house ; a few days later, when it Was occupied by
none except the dead, it became a continuous char-
nel-house. Death, nothing but death
seeveraytrwehteehreed;
great masses of bodies tossed out of the churches
as
the sufferers eApired ; layers of corps
on the balconies of houses as though taking a siesta.
In one yard a surgeon's blockforoploeoraktiantgewvea:
had
been c a
r
still standing, and, more appalling
to
than the bodies of thedeiard
,owpinleesrsofarmsand legs,ried
amputated as soon as their
off the field, were heaped in a corner. There were
said to be houses literally crammed with the dead ;
but into them, horrified and aghast at what I saw,
I could not look.

--- -
A gentleman who never left the towndurhinimgsietisf
occupation by the Federals, but concealed
during the bombardment in a cellar, tells me that
for hours and hours the long procession of men
with stretchers, bearing the wounded down to the
pontoons and across tee river, filed through the
streets. If any human being could look upon
Fredericksburg this week and fail bitterly to exe-
crate the men who, never exposing their little fin-
gers to risk, drive ignorant Gcrroan and Irish pea-
sants up such a slope of death, high indeed must
be the value at which he appraises the Union to the
family of man. Strange is the infatuation which
induces Northern statesmen and journalists to re-
present the Union as the last and only hope of
mankind. Will the surface of the continent of North
America be circumscribed by half an acre or its fer-
tility be diminished because the Union has ceased
to exist ? Are free institutions in danger, and will
the liberty of the individual in two Republics be
less than it has been in one ? The conclusion is ir•