The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONi)ON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 17, 1863.

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

(From the limes' Special Correspondent.)
HEAD-QUARTERS OF GEN. J. E. B. STUART,
NEAR FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA, Jan. 1.

Yesterday gloomy skies and a murky atmosphere
watched over the deathbed of the expiring year, and
many a heart in camp turned fondly homeward in
anticipation of that peace which it is hoped that the
recent fight at Fri derickshurg has brought so much
tearer, and which was selects st as r.ord for ti.e
last countersign of the year Tnis moreing a cloud-
it-s s y and h genial temperature usher in the most
eventful ye' r which t BE4 probably ever d- wned upon
h, conlin--t , y roe ~e-ceptcd
ceptcd b 3 thi Virginians, over whose beautiful fieids
and forests the bright sun is streaming, the har-
binger of that success in which men, women, and
children south of the Potomac have never for a mo-
ment, ceased firmly to believe. If the aspirations
atter pence which are universal throughout the
South are lei, rpreted by the North as indicating
faintness and fe,bleness of heart, then will this in-
terpretation prove a-. take as the Northern duel rine
that there is stilt Union sentiment, smothered and
stifled but ready to burst forth, somewhere in Se-
cessia. It is needless to repeat what cannot now be
unknown anywhere inEngland,that if tiieNorth put
it blank sheet of paper into President D ivis's hand,
and bade him write a constitution for the whole
original 34 States, there are not 50 men in the Con-
federacy who would be willing to enter again on
those conditions into partnership with the North.
It is not a new constitution and additional guaran-
tees for the protection of slavery that the Cont de-
rates want; they only ask good faith in the observ-
ance of the old Constitution—that good faith which
no written obligations and stipulations can ever
guarantee and insure. The old Constitution is pro-
nounced by thousands in the North to be a bawd
of iniquity, " a compact with hell ;" but when the
South desires to sunder that bond and set free
New England from participation in this compact,
some such words as " Southern wealth and North-
ern profits" are whispered throughout the North ;
and to maintain the connexion between them thou-
sands of millions of dollars and hundreds of thou-
sands of lives are given, when a tithe of the sum
lavished upon this war would have paved the way,
without the expenditure of a single life, to the
abatement of those evils in the system of slavery
which both North and South agree in condemning.
It is strange on a calm day like the present to
mount the commanding hill from which Gen. Lee
surveyed the recent action before Fredericksburg,
and to contrast the stillness and repose of the scene
with the hurly-burly of battle, and fire and smoke,
and the death tumult of Saturday, Dec. 13. Below
Marye's heights stretch the long low mounds be-
neath which the countless Federal dead sleep their
last long sleep; nor is there in this spot any other
evidence than these mounds, and a few dead and
still unburied horses, of the fearful struggle upon
which these heights so lately looked down. But as
the observer travels eastward along the ground oc-
cupied by the Confederate 'ines, and examines the
position held by Gen. A. P. Hill's troops, he will
find abundant evidences, in the shattered trees and
the furrowed hillsides, of the fury with which the
battle raged along the Confederate right. Juat on
be spot where a perfect tempest of round shot and
shot appears to nave rent the torest, and.where every
!tee is studded with bullets, is the station which
h.Jielison ,ecir pied throughout the action. When
I noticed to him thrl-e days ago that his positioh
rimst have been most perilous and uncomturtable,
he quietly observed that he had been in many
notter fires than that which were poured upon him
F,d ttek,burg. Ina former letter I observed
'oat the Con tea, rate force which General Lee
th _night proper to detach from his army of Northern
Virginia, with a view to employing it against Gen.
Burnside's force at Fredericksburg, did not, in
my opinion, exceed 90,000 men. Of course, in
this estimate I do not include the reserves which,
had they been required, Gen. Lee could have com-
manded, but for which it is abundantly appa-
rent (jndging from his address to the army, which
I enclose), that there was little necessity. In that
address, which, like eve, yt Ling which emanate from
General Lee's pen, makes the least rather than the
most of his success, he states that less than 20,000
of his men encountered the vast host of Gen. Burn-
side. It is a modest estimate of the slaughter which
these 20,000 men inflicted upon the Federals, to
compute that each Confederate engaged killed or
wounded one of his enemies. It will be sufficient
now to state that, although there seems in the minds
of several of the Confederate Generals a disinclina-
tion to employ more than 100,000 men in any one
army against their foe, be his numbers what they
may, it will, nevertheless, be found by the Federals,
whenever they resume their crusade upon Rich-
mond, that they will be met, if need be, man for
man, be their advance through the Shenandoah
Valley, or Fredericksburg, or Suffolk, or the coast
of North Carolina.

The return this evening of General Stuart and his
staff from another of those successful raids in which
he has so frequently indulged has shed a glow of
cheerfulness throughout the camp, and has afforded
much merriment by reason of the incidents which
accompanied this expedition, and of which every
one is talking. It appears that General Stuart
started upon Christmas-eve with a considerable
force of cavalry in the direction of Dumfries, dis-
tant about 30 miles from these headquarters. Thence
he proceeded towards Occoquan Creek, where, as
well as at Dumfries, he had skirmishes with the
enemy, during which he took about 200 prisoners,
and inflicted some loss upon them, himself sustain-
ing the loss of only man, Captain Bullock (a very
gallant officer), who, it is feared, was mortally
wounded. Atter crossing Occoquan Creek, General
Stuart s,ruck the Orange and Alexandria railroad,
and at Burke's station burst into the room where
the elegrarol operator was at work, and commanded
him, upon pain of ir.stant death if he misinterpreted,
to tract ,ff the messages which the click of ,he in
4rt umeort pronounced to be at that moment passing
along the wires. In this manner General Stuart
learnt the movements which Gen. Heintzelman and
other Federal Generals w.,re concerting with a view
,!! int, !venting to retreat, and altered his course so
is to it ffi their preparations. The luckless tele
graph operator and his fellow-prisoners—all of them
dismounted cavalry soldiers—were started off on
toot to walk 45 miles to Culpepper station, in order
that they might learn by practical experience what
a long and weary travel was requisite to carry
them to that Richmond which they have been so
long in reaching. The submarine telegraph clock
found at. Burke station is now a valuable acquisition
at Gen. Stuart's headquarters, and will probably be
the guide by which many a future reveillee and
tattoo will be sounded. After leaving Burke's sta-
tion Gen. Stuart proceeded towards Alexandria,
within eight miles of which town he turned towards
the north-west, and returned hither by a circuit
which brought him through Warrenton—which
town was occupied by a. large body of Yankee cavalry
e few hours after Gen. Stuart bad passed through it
and Culpepper, thus concluding an expedition less
important, but not less successful, than its prede-
cessors.

without
rests,
thout saarmlnei armies
an themattewrioalacnitiaagnogneitshii:
roe
they held before the battle of Fredericksburg, and
utinl occupy
from which neither of them seems at present dis-
posed to withdraw. It is certain that Gen. Lee will
never permit the Pederals to occupy Fredericksburg,
and to convert it (as they are known eagerly to de-
sire) into a vast entrepot of stores and munitions of
war, which might serve as a base whence to com•
mence another expedition against Richmond next
spring. The sufferings of the inhabitants of Frede-
ricksburg, who have lost everything which they pos-
sees upon earth, are likely to be protracted through-
out the winter; for in the present menacing attitude
which the two armies preserve in regard to the

town it is impossible for its former inhabitants to
return to their ancient domiciles. Much sympathy
has been evinced towards these hapless sufferers,
and it is expected that by Gen. Lee's army alone
not less than 100,000 dols. will be subscribed to-
wards their relief. It is singular to notice the in-
terest which the negroes in camp take in this sub-
scription, which they imagine is calculated iu some
manner to injure the Yankees, •And to which they
therefore great ,iiaerity in contributing. As
an instance, four adult negroes flad a boy at Gen.
Jenkins' head quarterssubscrib,d to the Fredericks •
hurg fund no less a sum Than 22 dots. Whatever
m- :c have heen the feeling of the slaves in North-
ri, VirL:tilia iu 'el; t.) emancipation at the
commencement of the war, it is certain that they
now entertain towards the Yankee a mingled feel-
ing of abhorrence and term!, which is continually
increasing, and is stimulated by the reports which
reach them of the misery of the runaway negroes
at Washington and 11,1rper'a Ferry, and Craney
Island. At this latter plice, which is near For-
tress Monroe, it i reporttd Oat a large body of
negroes are kept in a kind or e.thfiatnent by the
Federal authorities, in a miserable state of dirt,
listless apathy, and disease. It is found that no
work can be extorted from them by hope of re-
ward, or any of the stimulants which provoke the
white man to industry, and the Washington
Cabinet has the option of allowing tt.em to
starve or driving them back into captivity.
Ludicrous stories are told about the want of suc-
cess which has attended the efforts of the Federal
generals upon the coast of South Carolina to drill
and make soldiers out of negroes. It requires a
thousand white soldiers to guard night and day a
thousand negroes, to whom arms have been commit-
ted, and prevent their bolting with the muskets in-
trusted to them. When the negroes are called upon
to fire, the scene, as described to me by an eye-wit-
ness, baffles belief. Some fall flat on their faces,
others scramble up trees, nearly all fling away their
muskets, and endeavour to break out of the ranks.
If President Lincoln, and Mr. Wendell Phillips,
and General Butler could witness the eagerness
with which every Southerner who is acquainted
with negro nature welcomes the news that many
negro regiments are being organised at New Orleans
and elsewhere, they would have qualms about em-
ploying the African as an engine of war, and would
probably incline to the belief universally entertained
throughout the South, that no better method of
transferring muskets to the hands of Southern sol-
diers could easily be found. In many conversations
in camp and elsewhere with free negroes I have
never met one who, on being asked whether he
would rather be free or have a master, did not re-
spond that he would prefer a good and kind master
to freedom. It is useless to disguise the fact that
liberty in the eyes of the negro means simply imma-
nity from work. In tropical climates, such as the
island of Hayti, where the ground teems sponta-
neouslyht of withhe y r
fruit,ams and the trees bend under the
the negro basks in the vertical
weig
tsun, and is in Paradise. But in such a climate as
Virginia, where life cannot be supported without
manual labour, the negro needs the guidance and
support of the white man, and is conscious of this
want. Pnilanthropists of all ages and all countries
have loved to paint an African Utopia, in which the
negro might be awakened to the dignity of self-
supporting work, and might be taught the blessing
of unassisted independence. It was atter such an
Utopia as this that "Old John Brown" yearned,
and his ignorance of the constitutional tempera-
ment of the negro cost him his own life, while no
man, white or black, was the gainer by its sacrifice.
l'he r, mark lately Inc+de to me at Richmond, to
he effect that this war would soon be brought to
an end if 50,000 aged and infirm negroes and
uegresses were driven into the Funeral lines, and
thrown upon the Federals for their support, shows
no inconsiderable acquaintance with human nature,
both black and white.

Generals Lee, Longstreet, and Stuart continue to
occupy the same head qu -rters in which they had
been living for nearly a month before the battle.
General Burnside, on the contrary, is said to have
placed his head quarters nearly halfway between
the town of Fredericksburg and Acquia Creek.
Upon every bright day the Federal balloon is ob-
served floating in the sky, but the experience of 20
months of warfare has taught the Confederates how
tittle formidable such engines of warfare are, and
very little heed is given to the learned professor
about whose movements in the air the Northern
journals have so much to say. Bat if in respect of
balloons science has proved an inadequate coadjutor
of Bellona, it must be confessed that upon another
element she has incontestably asserted her supre-
macy. I allude to the superiority of the modern
rifled cannon, and more especially of the Whitworth
guns in the hands of the Confederates. It is
im-
possible too highly to praise the performance, as a
field gun, of the 20-pounder Whitworth. There is
no other gun upon this continent which can com-
pare with it in lightness, in precision, and in length
of range. Again and again one single Whitworth
gun has forced Federal batteries to change their
position, and eventually to fall back. The only objec-
tion here entertained to the Whitworth is the ab-
sence of shell which may be projected from it. The
Confederate Ordnance Department has invented a
shell which, it is hoped, will suit it, but I am not
aware that it has, as yet, been successfully tried.
Be this as it may, there has been more joy among
the Ordnance officers over the arrival of five more
Whitworth guns, which have just arrived safely at
Wilmington in the steamer Giraffe, then there would
be at the capture of 100 such guns as were in posi-
tion on both sides at the battle of Fredericksburg on
the 13th of last month. It is curious to remark how
tuck alternately favours and deserts the vessels
which attempt to run the blockade. At this moment
hardly a day passes without the announcement that
some vessel has successfully run into Charleston,
Mobile, or some other Southern port ; and, inasmuch
48 most of these vessels are the property of the Con-
federate Government. and bring cargoes of which
he value at this moment can hardly be estimated,
it will be understood that the profits of the venture
do not go into the pockets of mere speculators, but,
through the agency of the Government, find weir
way to the Confederate soldier and citizen. Unques-
.ionably the Confederate Government could afford
hereafter to lose many of its vessels in consideration
of the success which has recently attended its in-
fraction of the blockade.

RICHMOND, Jan. 4.
Having been my own courier, and having con-
veyed this letter as far as Richmond, it is de-
sirable that I should add the latest impressions en-
tertained here in regard to the important battle at
Murfreesborough, which raged during the last day
of the departed and the first day of the current year,
with a fury and vehemence which has throughout
this war characterised the engagements of the West,
and which culminated last summer at the dreadful
battle of Shiloh. It should be premised that the
attack directed by General Rosecrans against the
Confederate lines at Murfreesbornugh was rendered
necessary by the fact that the Confederate cavalry
had got into his rear, and had cut off the communi-
cation between the important towns of Louisville
and Nashville. General Rosecrans had no option
but to advance against the Confederates, and, if
possible, clear them out of Tennessee, or to fall back
upon Nashville and abandon the whole of Eastern
Tennessee to the Confederates. He chose the former
alternative, encouraged by the fact that his own
army outnumbered Gen. Bragg's two to one, and
that he believed Gen. Bragg to be additionally
weakened by the recent withdrawal of a large de-
tachment from his force. It is understood that the
lines occupied by Gen. Bragg at Murfreesborough
were seleced by President Davis and Gen. John-
ston, and that the great object of fighting a battle
when the disparity of forces was so great was to
Prevent cooperation between the force of Gen.
IRosecrans in Tennessee and the force under Gen.

Grant near Oxford, in Mississippi, which is threat-
ening Vicksburg. It was fully expected that Gen.
Bragg would be defeated, but time was the great
desideratum in order to enable Gen. Johnston to
mature his preparations at a point further South
which it is not advisable at present to mention, and
to take that prominent part in the Western cam-
ign which he is expected to assume before many
wet ks have flown. The battle of December
31 tz,elllS, judging by the destruction of Federal
officers announced in the Northern journals, to
have been one of the most sanguinary of the war.
The results of that day's fighting were the capture
by the Confederates of 4,000 prisoners, 25 pieces
of artillery, and the destruction of six more, and
simultaneously the cavalry of Generals Wheeler and
Wharton was engaged in destroying long waggon
trains belonging to the Federals, and inflicting upon
them a loss which, in that devastated and inacces-
sible country, may be pronounced irreparable. Upon
the first day of the New Year the battle was re-
sumed, and again it is believed here that victory
inclined, to the Confederate side, and that a strong
position of the Federals which resisted all attacks
upon the 31st of December was abandoned by them
upon the following day. But it was found by Gene-
ral Bragg that the Federal forces had only fallen
back a short way and had got behind entrenchments,
and that, moreover, they had been heavily reinforced.
His own army was in no condition, after two days
of severe fighting against a greatly superior force,to
resume operations, and in compliance (as is here
said) with the instructions of General Johnston,
General Bragg fell back upon a strong position at
Shellyville, leaving his enemy's army shattered and
decimated, according to Northern accounts, to an
extent far exceeding the anticipations entertained
here at the time when the battle began.

It cannot be denied that such a battle as that at
Murfreesborough is, at this moment, a great gain
to the Confederates. It is probable that both
armies are so weakened and exhausted that neither
of them will be able to resume operations for many
weeks. In the meantime General Grant must pro-
ceed in his aggressive movements upon Vicksburg
without any assistance from General Rosecrans.
The great anxiety of the moment is whether that
heroic little city will be able to hold out if attacked
simultaneously by General Grant's land force and
by a flotilla on the river. There is, it is true, some-
where in the neighbourhood of Jackson a Confede-
rate force, the nucleus of that army which General
Johnston is hereafter to command. But it is pos-
sible that it may have to fall back before the large
force commanded by Gen. Grant, which is estimated
at 60,000 men, and which is reported to have been,
or to be about to be, joined by General M'Clernand's
army, loosely estimated at 30,000 more. Evidently
the struggle for the possession of the Mississippi is
destined this winter and next spring to be fiercely
contested. It is incontestable that if the spring
breaks and finds the river from Vicksburg to Port
Hudson still in the hands of the Confederates, the
North-West, which is already grumbling, will grow
intolerant of the further duration of the war, and
will make the best terms it can with the power
wi ich commands the key to the Mississippi River.
It is hoped by the North that the capture of Vicks-
burg and Port Hudson will reopen navigation be-
tween St. Louis and New Orleans. Nothing is, in
my opinion, further from the truth. A few six-
pounders placed on any of the numerous bluffs along
the river would effectually bar the passage of every
trading vessel, and disappoint the commercial as-
pirations of St. Louis and Cincinnati. But the bisec-
tion of the Confederacy which would result if that
great aorta of this continent, the Mississippi River,
was throughout its whole length controlled by the
Federals, would be a heavy blow to the Govern-
ment at Richmond; and with this fact in view the
earnest words of President Davis, that " Vicksburg
and Port Hudson must be held at all hazards," pos-
sess additional significance. It is an encouraging
fact that one of the highest military authorities upon
this continent believes that Vicksburg can be de-
fended by 15,000 men against any possible attack,
by, whatever number of assailants it may be con-
ducted, upon its land side.

The President has returned from his long tour in
the Wrest and South, looking decidedly better than
when I last saw him. He is in excellent spirits
at the prospects of the Confederate armies both
in the East and West, and responded to a sere-
nade in his honour upon his return to Richmond
with that quiet dignity which seems never to desert
him. The following words employed by Mr.
Davis on the occasion in question, and addressed to
his fellow-citizens, seem to me so appropriate that I
cannot forbear quoting them here :
" You have shown yourselves to be in no respect degene-
rate_sons of your fathers. You have fought mighty battles,
and your deeds of valour will live among the richest
triumphs of Time's ample page. It is true you have a cause
which binds you together more firmly than your fathers.
They fought to be free from the usurpation of the British
Crown, but they fought against a manly foe. You fight
against the offseourings of the entire earth. Men who were
bound to you by the compact which they and their fathers
had entered into to secure to you and your posterity for ever
net only the rights enunciated in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, but also those which Virginia, when she acceded
to the Federation of the United States, plainly and wisely
reserved for herself, now come to you with their hands
steeped in blood, robbing the widow, destroying houses and
property, warring against non-combatants, seizing the gray- '
haired father and plunging him into a dungeon because he
refuses to be a traitor to the principles of his fathers and
the land that gave him birth. Every crime that could
characterize the conduct of demons has marked the course
of the invader. The Northern frontier of Virginia has been
ruthlessly desolated, the people deprived of their means of
subsistence, their household property destroyed, and every
indignity and ou' rage which a merciless and ingenious foe
could invent inflicted, without regard to age, sex, or conditon.
They have murdered prisoners of war, they have plundered
the defenceless, and exhausted their malignant ingenuity to
bring the deepest destitution upon those whose only offence
is that their husbands and sons are fighting for their homes
and their liberties. Every crime, from sacking and burning
defenceless and unoffending towns to the stealing of silver
forks, has marked their shameless career. In New Orleans
General Butler has exerted himself to earn the execrations
of the civilised world, and now returns with his dishonours
thick upon him to receive the plaudits of the only people
on earth that does not blush to think he wears the human
form. . . . Do they hope to reconstruct the Union by
striking at everything which is dear to man? To such a
depth of disgrace and infamy have they fallen that were
the question proposed to you whether you would combine
with Yankees or hyaenas, I trust there is not one Virginian
but would respond, Give me the hyaenas
War is an evil in every form, but it has sometimes its pal-
liating circumstances. This is a new Government, formed
of independent States, each jealous of its own sovereignty.
It is necessary and advantageous that it should be tried in
the severe crucible in which we are being tested, in order
to weld us together. The enjoyments and comforts we
have been forced to renounce, the long agony of anxiety we
have endured, the unceasing labours we have undergone,
the glory which we have conjointly secured, have combined
to make us a band of brothers, and may wo be united and
harmonious for evermore. 'When peace and prosperity re-
turn, may we go on assisting each other to develope the
great political principles upon which our Government is
based, and the boundless natural resources which have been
committed to our keeping. To an appreciation of the deep
significance of the former wo are at length awakening. In
the latter direction we are displaying unexampled energy.
Our mines have been made to yield long-neglected wealth;
our manufactories start up as if by magic. lam not blind
to the increasing power of our enemy, but mark that our
own has been proportionably far greater, until I can see in
the future nothing to mar our attainment of that indepen-
deucen for which we shall never cease to struggle. ONoweear
hope
ago many were depressed, and some despondent.
and resolve are seen in every eye, and anueounetr zbolrenespaniridt
nerves every aria. With such noble women
be, invincible."
iinhv ble,
heroic men in the field, we are, and shall continuo to
b believed
ppthreastssteysdul styleen
It will ewr
go
yr
ws
ha sic thh
ce sh ea, rda ec
ithe
thatterises President Davis's
echo in the breast ofg h
ol
fi stsetnreurg.gleßsu
fort, though
i
P
the end of this
n cannot be far distant, it would seem
mi
everytiest
that there are likely to be troubled times be-
fore the haven is reached. A fierce contest for
the possession of the Mississippi Valley must
be fought out to a decision, General Burnside's