The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-14 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)

WASHINGTON, July 31.

I have come to the threshhold of the American
civil war—to the troops-beset city of magnificent
iatances. We arrived yesterday morning in one of
the heavy showers which seem intended almost day
by day to temper the tropical heat of this weeern
continent, but which have only the effect of adding
to its stifling oppressiveness. We waded and floun-
dered t hrougn Washington as through a sea of mud;
a circumstance which did not prevent the same town
from presenting the image of a perfect wilderness
of dust before evening. We found soldiers at the
station, I can hardly say how many companies of
them, quartered in the waiting-rooms, offices, and
gangways of what is here called the depot or ter-
minus; we had to jump over them, we and our
cloaks and our carpetbags, as they lay full-stretched
in our way on the sloppy floor of the ill-sheltered
establishment. Outside, the hardiest or unluckiest
of the gang were wallowing in the mire, to which
they are, to judge by their look, as thoroughly
accustomed as to their beds; and all along the roads
along those vast spaces of muddy mounds and quag-
mires which are here classed and numbered in
streets, on the steps of the Capitol, before the doors
of public buildings, everywhere we saw them ; sol-
diers of all arms, in every variety of costume, with-
out visible distinction of corps, on no perceptible
duty or errand, were there—not in great numbers,
truly, bat still conspicuous everywhere—as if to
warn us by their übiquity of the fact that we had
come to the seat of a Government whose only busi-
ness is war, to the centre of a nation converted into
a vast camp, with a metropolis for head-barracks.
I had seen soldiers enough in New York, in

Boston, throughout the Eastern cities, and needed
hardly to visit Washington to come to the conclu-
sion that the word "soldier" must be understood in
America to convey a different meaning from that
universally received among the well-organised and
civilised nations of Earope. Of the dashing and
enduring valour, of the hardihood and perseverance
of American fighting men on either side, the world
has for the last three years received more than suf-
ficient evidence, and the laurels they have reaped
in the field cannot be tarnished by any word of
discouragement that may be breathed as to their
tidiness and discipline in camp. No ono could be
unwilling to make great allowance for the circum-
stances under which a hest of 1,000,000 combat.
ants were suddenly called to arms, for the nature
of the men who supplied the rank and file, for the
inexperience of the leaders, for the carelessness, to
call it by no worse name, of the rulers at the war
department. It takes years to make a soldier, and
here not an army, but a hest of armies, was to be
wot up at a moment's notice. Bat when all was
and %hen tweed, dis4strous marches, want of
accommodation, and the worst of management were
,ccout:t, there rtili rumiined great
ia proc;'ga,n, dirt and squilor
ry. I yaw squ,ns of armed
N..‘x Y 'a •he -,recta of ki city running
w who seeo,'d to have a hor-

ror of water, as it ;he pure e etnent had power ro

wlsh "the very tn,,rn,w ow 3 strong man's hones,"
ac it p.rting with the crust of many days' dirt was
ns painful to them as to the victorious racer of an.
cient, times to shake the Olympic dust off his cha•

riot wheels, They seemed actually to delight and
revel in dirt, and in the tatters of their loose hang-
ing garments, in the rust of their dinted and twisted
weapons. They had gone through hard work, and
were fain to call the world to witness of the stren-
uousness of their exertions. The Neapolitan regi-
.ments in the palmy days of King Bomba were not
more unmindful of that proper soldierly pride
which, in the Old World, seems to identify valour
with pipeclay, than are these heroic warriors of
the Western Continent. They seem as scornful
of uniformity of costume as the mosstroopers
of the middle ages, and fall as naturally into the
cdd and the picturesque. Not a score of them
are anywhere to be recognised as men belonging
to the same corps. The ungraceful and in-
convenient kepi, the last contrivance of French
absurdity, has been officially copied here as every-
where on the continent of Europe, but Republican
freedom has substituted all possible varieties of
slouched hats ; of buttoned--up, tidily-fitting coats
hardly an instance occurs, even among the officers;
and, altogether, a more odd, rnffianly-looking set of
crmed men than I have seen marching along the
)otpaths in Bradway, in the midst of a delighted
; lob of citizens, clapping hands at them as if they
were mere dumb figures at the play-house, it never
was my lot to see anywhere—except, perhaps, in
the suite of the Giribildian bands in Calabria.

%Vasn this is said, the very worst is said with re-
gard to the outward look of these champions of the
American Union. The mere mannschaft, as the
Germans hive it—the thews and sinews, the mein
and bearing of the great bulk of the Northern army,
are all that the heart of its leaders could wish.
There are no very high statures, no very bulky
frames among them; they are, most of them, men
of middle size, lean and lank, narrow .shouldered,
stooping and shambling in many instances; they
look worn and sullen, but they bear every mark of
stern endurance and dogged resolution. They have
no spare fl,eh, no exuberant spirits, no song, no
frolic; but they lock like work—up to their busi-
ness, which is to kilt, to die.

A gentleman who has had much to do with the
management of these troops complains of them as
" thinking bayonets." "The Northern soldier,,'
he said, " would rather go without his breakfast
than without his newspper, Tie discusses the
plan of the campaign with his officer, and sits in
jadgrnsnt on his General's tactics." To this carp-
ing criticism of the rank and file, to this want of
good confidence in their leaders, the gentleman in
question ascribed the slow success and the frequent
reverses of the Northern arms, and he contrasted
it with the spirit of the Confederate soldiers—un-
educated men, as he described them—who look up to
their commanding officer as a demigod, who receive
orders, ask no questions, and allow themselves no
rem arks.

With all this disadvantage of not unwilling but
unsteady discipline I ha'e every day greater cause
to wonder at the transcendent confidence of the
majority of those Northern men in the ultimate
success of their cause. The earnest steadiness with
which they pursue their purpose is only commen-
surate with their utter recklessness as to the means
which must lead to its attainment. Not only do
they not care," but they positively delight in the
vastness of the sacrifice their country demands of
them. They seem less eager for victory than for
the fearful amount of blood and treasure by which
they are to achieve
you
ask; "Aye,
"Are they sure to take
Charleston?"
sure as death. The
cost will be tremehd;
c; but who would wish to
have it at a cheap rateDtt:
Hang the expense !" is
the motto. It is not of ,
proud
the
butresult of their mighty
effort that they are proi
of the capabilities
and resources of their couetry:
in patting forth such
colossal power. The big war, they are anxious to
prove, bears full proportions with
the bigness of the
Republic. Every man seems to swell fore you as
he d vvells on the gigantic strength the .b
State
brings
b
into the field. The navy has raised the number of
men of war, which were only 60 at the outbreak
hostilities, to 600. What to-day costs millions, of
to-
morrow will rise to tens of millions. They
are not
sorry for it; they are delighted at it; they will
have no rest till the expense shall be hundreds of
millions! A steam frigate founders, a regiment is
cut, to pieces, an ironclad is sunk by the enemy.
Hurrah! All the greater their joy. Here they are,
ready with four new regiments, with four more
steam frigates, with ten additional ironclads.
Failure braces them up even more than success
would elate them. Al; they are anxious to show
is the boundlessness and inexhaustibleness of their
means. Their is no ioss they cannot repair/ no
waste, co extravagance they cannot afford. Of this
I;te word must be well assured. It is in this extent,
thiS eXpvitdvesiesB of their means, that lies the
rtainty of their progress to the end. They want to
mate much of it, doubtless ; they br;.g an intole-
rabie deal about it, we are al: sure. It is on this
lavish, wanton display of unlimited power that they
lay their hope of its irresistibleness. It is by it that
they aspire to strike dismay and despair into the
hearts of their present ioe—that they trust to over-.

awe their eventual enemy. How can the South,
how can Europe, have a chance to stand against
this unweary giant P Let the struggle b fr: olonged
for ever so many years, let the fortune of war be
ever so fickle, and success alternate ev.r so blindly,
America cannot fail to wear out all tu << gonism
Such is the burden of the song that daily dinned
in my ears whenever I mix in conversation with per-
sons about me. The present war can, lam every-
where assured, have but one issue. The South
must give in, must surrender at discretion ; Union
must be restored, Secession must lead to a thorough
and speedy extinction of slavery. Whatever havoc
and confusion emancipation may lead to will be of
no moment in the great work of national regenera-
tion, in the consciousness of power, in the display
of strength to which this struggle has given rise.
America .an never be sufficiently thankful for the
golden opportunity this war has given her, no less
than the world at large, of setting a proper value
on her unsuspected energies, on her latent vitality.
Without their proverbial proneness to brag, the
Americans themselves had no adequate notion,
they say, of the bigness of their country, or of the
might of their nation. This bigness and this might
they have now begun to put forth at the expense of
their Southern brethren ; and they will end by dis-
playing them at the cost of their Transatlantic
cousins. Yes, war with Europe, war with England,
is the object of their most ardent aspiration. They
talk about it with a zest,
among
with a glibness, which per-
fectly amazes me. Were there a conspiracy
them all to hoodwink, to bamboozle, to impose upon
me, I must say that they could hardwlyouhaldvescaleracrenlyt
their part with greater diligence, they
practise their lesson upon me with moreeceolnsg oumi
mate skill, concert, and unanimity. The feeling
hostility to England, which was deep and earnest
in New York, acquires fresh liveliness and intensity
as I draw near to the seat of Government in Wash-
ington. It may be all idle vapouring and big talk.
There may be nothing in it. Men must jadge of
it in England as their sober judgment prompts
them ; but I cannot help seeing and noticing what
falls before my daily observation. If men ever
meant what they say the Americana must and will
have war with England,—a big war, a war like
what they are now waging with the South, granting
no quarter, and aiming at utter extermination.