The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-29 00:00:00

THE CIVIL, WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, June 17.
Tkia whole North is in a tumult of excitement,
ania, it may be added, of fear. Although for the
last three weeks the indications have been many, as
the readers of this correspondence will admit, that
the Confederates were preparing fora great aggres-
sive movement into Maryland and Pennsylvania,
the people and the Government of the North seem
to have anticipated no danger, and to have taken
no measures to avert or diminish it. The alarming
hints and rumours in the press were treated as
fabrications, and the War Department at Washing-
ton took especial care to inform the easy-going
public that Mr. Lincoln was in the best possible
spirits, that all was quiet on the Rappahannock,
and that Vicksburg and Port Hudson could not
resist for many hours the murderous fire of the
besiegers. People invested their " greenbacks" in
`‘ five-twenty bonds," the premium on gold went
steadily, though slowly, down, and public attention,
when not engaged in stock-jobbing or other forms
of honest or dishonest money-making, fastened itself
upon the antics of Generals Burnside and Hascall,the
last new truculency of some reverend war Christian
in his desecrated pulpit, or the freshest little bit of
presumptuoais insolence that had fallen from. the
lips of a politician in petticoats. But on Sunday
last the aspect of affairs was suddenly changed.
Indifference gave way to alarm ; and from that day
to this a sucession of true and false reports of the
progress of the invasion of Pennsylvania, under
Generals Ewell and J. E. B. Stuart, at the head
of 20,000 horsemen ; and of General Lee, at the
bead of 80,000 or 90,000 infantry, cavalry, and
artillery, to some point not known, the possession
of which will endanger both Washington and Balti-
more, have kept the population of this city and of
all the wide extent of country between the Hud-
son and the Potomac in a state of shame, be-
wilderment, anxiety, and terror. The feeling of
shame is, perhaps, paramount above all the rest.
Almost every one sees that if Lee gain a decisive
victory over Hooker, which he is very likely to do,
the cause of the North is virtually lost, and the Conf-
ederate general will be able to dictate the terms of the
peeice for which the Northern heart has begun to
experience so decided a yearning. That the Northern
soil should be invaded by a veteran and determined
army, led by a skilful and daring general, at a time
when the Northern people believed that the South
would never do more than defend itself ; and that it
should be necessary, in default of the regular army,
to call out the whole able-bodied male population of
a great, wealthy, and hitherto peaceful State for the
defence of its towns, cities, and homesteads, and to
appeal to all the contiguous States for every avail-
able militiaman, volunteer, or discharged soldier
who could be got together for love or money, to aid
in the work of defence, is felt to be a humiliation,
not due so much to the audacity of the Southern as
to the imbecility of the Northern Government, Mr.
Lincoln has appealed in the emergency to the Go-
vernors of the States of Pennsylvania, New York,
Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio for 120,000
men. The Governors have all promised to ci.o their
best, though the Militia in this Sta. 6 have not ex-
hibited as much alacrity in ar.-,,wering to the appeal
as was anticipated fro
:an their patriotism, or as
the danger would 'warrant, declining to leave
their homes and.businesses for an indefinite period,
and requiring the Government to state positively
how many " days" is meant by the " short time" for
which they are summoned before they will con-
sent to take their departure. For some reason, nut
stateii, Mr. Lincoln made no call upon the Demo-
cratic State and ultra-Democratic Governor of New
Jersey for any assistance, but Governor Curtin,
of Pennsylvania, supplied the omission in an
earnest appeal to Governor Parker for all the men
he could spare. Neither did Mr. Lincoln call upon
any of the New England States for help, but Go-
vernor Andrew, of Massachusetts, volunteered to
send as many regiments of returned soldiers as could
be induced, with or without bounty, to lend their
aid to Pennsylvania. But, notwithstanding all the
zeal and all the alarm, little has yet been done.
Up to this day not 3,000 men from New York, New
Jersey, or New England, have repaired to the scene
of danger, and the defence of Pennsylvania rests
entirely with its own citizens. How Mr. Lincoln, or
any member of his Administration, can hope to es-
cape impeachment and punishment, should any
great mishap befall the State of Pennslyvania on the
one hand, or the army of General Hooker on the
other, is difficult to imagine. He was empowered by
Congress, more than three months ago, to raise any
amount of armies he pleased by a compulsory con-
scription of all the ablebodied men in the North be-
tween the ages of 18 and 45, and, though he knew
that his existing armies were melting away by
death, disease, desertion, and the expiration of the
terms of enlistments of the best and hardiest sol-
diers that composed them, he allowed these precious
months to pass over without carrying the intentions
of Congress into effect. The enrolment has scarcely
begun in some of the States, and the 120,000 men
now so suddenly called for will not possess the
soldierly qualities and strict discipline that will
fit them to cope with the weather-beaten and
trained warriors of the South, even if they should
be obtained in sufficient time to be brought into
action, which is doubtful. Half of that number
of trained soldiers, which Mr. Lincoln might have

secured by this time, had he not been apprehensive
of a forcible resistance to the draught in the
cities of the North and the rural towns of the

`West, would have stood his Government in greater
stead at this moment than all the raw and hasty
levies that he can summon together. But, if his
country do not impeach him, history will ; and all
the excuse to be made for him will resolve itself
into the single statement that he was a weak man
with good intentions, utterly unfitted for the posi-
tion into which a fatality, as cruel to himself, as to
his country, thrust him at a time of the greatest

peril that ever befell a nation.
The alarm which was at its height yesterday in
Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New
York has partially subsided to-day in this city, and
has given place to something like a feeling of in-

juredinnocence that the South should be so unrea-

sonable as to wish to inflict as well as bear the

miseries of war. The Northern people do not ap-
pear to have calculated that they were ever to be
made to realise the full horrors of an invasion, or

be made to suffer the agonies of devastated fields,
blazing cities, and the whistling of shot and shell
through their streets and counting-houses; but the

imminent danger of Philadelphia, only three hours
distant by railway from New York, has awakened
them to a painful appreciation of the fact that war
is not only a matter of fat contracts, flourishing
trade, abundant paper money, immense expendi-
ture, and triumphal welcome of returning soldiers ;
bat of blood and death, fire and ruin, the greatest
scourge that can afflict humanity—only to be con-
sidered just, holy, or even defensible when waged
in the cause of national honour, independence, and
liberty, and particularly odious and detestable when
waged for the purposes of selfish ambition, territo-
rial aggrandisement, and unjust coercion of a people
who only desire to be let alone to their own laws
and observances and the form of government that
suits their temperament, their climate, their habits,
and their necessities.

Amid the mass of rumours and reports that arrive
by telegraph every half hour from all
points of the
extensive regions invaded by the Confederate army
it is difficult to arrive at a definite understanding of
the state of affairs at any time since the invasion
commenced. All that is clear i, that the Confede-
rate cavalry, commanded by Gen. Ewell, and num-
bering, it is supposed, fully 20,000 men, with a train
of light artillery, have entered Pennsylvania and
galloped unimpeded as far as Chambersburg ; that
the advance guard of this imposing force is led by
the gallant Gen. J. E. B. Stuart; that they threaten
Harrisburg, the State capital of Pennsylvania, a
small town on the Susquehannah ; and that the
people and military authorities of the State, greatly
alarmed, have resolved to destroy all the bridges
over the river, and make the Susquehannah their
line of defence until the reinforcements to be sent
to them by Mr. Lincoln shall arrive. Where Gen.
Lee is and what are his objects no one can tell,
though a thousand statements and theories are cur-
ent;
r each supported by more or less plausibility.