The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 1, 1863.

THE CONFEDERATE STATES.

(Flom the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
RICHMOND, April 18.
- If, in the discharge of my office, I am continually
impressed by the inability of all contemporary'
writers adequately to seize the lessons and under-
stand the moral of this war, there is one point which
stands so boldly and prominently out that he who
runs may read. It is that Federal success is every-
where in the° inverse ratio to Federal incubation ;
that where month after month is given to elabo: ate
preparation, and the soaring genius of the New
York press essays its loftiest flights of vaticination,
the mountains in labour never fail to produce the .
proverbial mouse. If at any time success has at-
tended Yankee enterprise it has been where in some
exceptional instance vigorous and energetic men
have struck boldly in without counting the cost, or
waiting to call all the world to witness the throes
and convulsions of the labouring mountain. What
would have been the result if, in the first instance,
without waiting for turreted monsters and all the
Behemoths of the New York Herald, the Federali
had attacked every Southern harbour with wooden
vessels and launches, and had made up by rapidity,
übiquity, and pertinacity of attack for scantiness of
preparation, is now beyond a peradventure. At no
Southern ports for the first six months of the war
was there enough gunpowder to keep up a bom-
bardment of sours Lt he teeth of Charleston, Mo-
bile, Savannah, and Wilmington might have been
drawn,end the cities captured more easily than New
Orleans; the vast supplies which have been sucked
in through the blockade would never have greased
the wheels of the rebellion; the Confederate army
would long ago have been standing savagely at bay
in the mountains of North Carolina or in the inte-
rior of Texas. Not such was the Yankee conception
of the war. Colossal contracts had to be issued, full
flight given to the costly researches of empirical
ingenuity, a vast continent, cradled in the lap of 50
years of peace and unprecedented material pros-
perity had to don its armour, and transfer its alle-
giance from Minerva to Bellona, and the precious
time lost in this change of service has never been
recovered. If, as I have often previously remarked,
the power of Northern offence increased one hun-
dredfold, the energy and resource of Southern resis-
tance increased pari passu a thousandfold. And
now, on the threshold of the third year of the war,
the disparity between the land forces of the two
sections scarcely amounts to more than that infini-
tesimal proportions described by chemists as " a
trace ;" so that it needs no prophet to foretell that
in a few weeks the Federals may find themselves at
bay and on the defensive, while the Confederates,
leaving behind them the desolate wilderness of hap-
less Virginia, may be advancing into a country which
lies like the garden of Eden at their feet.
It will have been known to your readers, long be-
fore the arrival of this letter, that the attack on
Charleston, which commenced on the 7th inst., and
was on that day kept up with vigour for nearly three
hours by nine Federal iron-plated vessels, was aban-
doned, finally as some think, upon the afternoon of
the 12th. Of these vessels, the " new Ironsides," a
soi-distant seaworthy frigate, nominally the rival
of the Warrior and La Gloire, and mounting 16
heavy guns, two of them rifled 100-pounders, was
reputed by far the most formidable. Built somewhat
like the iron-clad gunboats of the Mississippi, though
with less shelving sides, looming up the harbour
large and low, like an immense house with a roof
flat at the ridge, and then sloping steeply both ways
—the house itself submerged in water up to the
rain pipes under the eaves—the Ironsides slowly
and majestically advanced in the van of the attack-
ing squadron, carrying the flag of Admiral Dupont,
and impressing all spectators with the conviction
that, if the success of this day's attack upon Charles-
ton were commensurate with the anticipations of
some of the assailants, the advance of Admiral
Dupont's frigate into action was likely to be cele-
brated in song and story when Coiling wood's bold
onslaught at Trafalgar had been forgotten. Be-
hind the Ironsides advanced in two lines her lesser
sisters of the deep—seven of the Ericsson Monitors,
each with one revolving turret and two guns, built
upon a design and in a fashion with which your
readers have long been familiar, and one new aspi-
rant to the honours of invulnerability in the shape
of the double turreted Keokuk, called also the
Whitney battery. The turrets of the Keokuk do
not revolve, bat in each a heavy gun is fixed, one of
them throwing, I believe, an 11-inch, the other a
15-inch shot or shell. The solemnity of the scene,
as these mailed pioneers of a new system of nautical
warfare wore slowly in towards Fort Sumter, their
ports closed, their exterior presenting no sign of life
or action, their propelling power unseen, their tre•
mendous guns withdrawn from view, forced the
blood through the heart of the spectators in long
and quickening pulsations. Suddenly " the long
roll" beat to arms in Fort Sumter, the crescent and
palmetto tree of the sovereign State of South Caro-
lina rose side by side with the stars and bare of the
infant Confederacy, and as the twin flags flung
themselves out upon the breeze the well-known na-
tional air of Dixie rang out its defiance, and the pain-

ful silence was broken by a salute of 13 guns from
the fort. Everywhere along the wharves of Char-
leston, upon the sea-wall of the battery, on the
tops of every house commanding the harbour,
spectators of both sexes stood eagerly observant;
while the student of history, had be possessed calm-
ness enough at such a moment, might have recalled
Thueydides' thrilling description of the Pincus when
the ill-omened Sicilian expedition went forth
freighted with the prayers and aspirations of the
entire population of Athens, impotent though they
were to avert its inexorable doom.

Northwards, in the direction of Sullivan's Island,
the Ironsides continues the even tenor of her way,

until at a distance of not much more than 1,000

yards from the island she curves slightly inwards
towards Fort Sumter and lets fall her anchor, being

afraid, from her large draught of water, to advance
further. Almost simultaneously the first flash from
the Sullivan's Island batteries launches iron messen-

gers against the tough ribs of the frigate, and is fol-
lowed speedily by the louder report of the barbette
guns of fort Sumter. To the latter, from a distance
of about 1,200 yards, the Ironsides responds with
her broadside of seven guns. The iron hail crashes
against the sea face of the fort, the bricks crumble
and fly from the parapet into the air; one shell
strikes a bricked-up port-hole and tears through a
weak spot into the interior, but it is at once seen
that the boasted efficacy of the enormous globes of
iron has been greatly exaggerated, and that they
are vastly less formidable than was imagined. I am
assured that in no instance was the penetration of
the shot upon the face of the fort deeper than 20
inches, or the surface of brickwork displaced larger
than could be spanned by a circle with a diame-
ter of less than five feet. As the Ironsides pauses
in her course, her lighter companies stand boldly
in closer to the fort, against which, in despair of in-
juring the sand batteries of Sullivan's and Morris
Islands, their principal onslaught is directed.
Boldest of all, as drawing least water, the Keokuk
advances within 900 yards of the fort. Upon her at
one time the concentrated fire of Fort Sumter and
of the works on the two islands played simul-
taneously, but it is believed that the shot from
vfhieh she received her coup de grace emanated from
the Brooke gun,
ear_ and the invention of a Confederate al-
T 7,m the product of a Confederate foundry—the
reue _
Works at Richmond. Capt. Brooke has
long been favourably known
will
endeavourto nautical
to
ome men
givea
your
o uthe
inventor of the Brooke'sr
deep sea sounding appara •
tux. In a future letter
readers fuller particulars of the Brooke gun, suffice
it for the present to say that in the first ebullition
of Confederate exultation in
mreagiliard to Charleston it
is claimed that against iron thgeh b
oßrookeuho o gun f
has not its equal upon earth. At
conducted four days ago in the neian experiment
tinee from the
this city, one of, these guns, at a dist

target of 2/56 yards, sent a wrqught.iron bolt weigh-
ing 1201 b., projected by 20kb. of powder, clean
through 13in._ of iron strapped upon 22in. of oak.

The rifling of the gun is very slow and gradual, there
being but one complete turn in a length of 33ft.; so

that in each gun, assuming an average length of
about loft., the riding reachis but one-third of a
turn. The efficacy of the wropght iron bolt, smooth
and polished as a knife bladi3, is very highly com-
mended.
Your readers will long ago have learnt that on
the morning of the Bth, the Keokuk sunk not far
from Morris Island, that t same day one of the
Ericesson Monitors was to off to Port Royal in
An obviously crippled conditi n, and that the pumps
of the Ironsides after the act n were at work night
and day. The presumption% that Admiral Dupont
sent off a vessel to Washingtin to announce the re-
sults of his attack on the 7tand that he lay in the
harbour, out of range of F 4 Sumter and the other
batteries, until orders from Vihtshington reached him.
No one who is acquainted. with Admiral Dupont
entertains the slightest doubt that he offered, if it
pleased the attorney-stateehlea of Washington to
give such orders, to renew thO attack on Fort Sumter,
although it may have been the Admiral's opinion
that in that case all his other ironclads would be
sunk. Upon the 12th the messenger from Washing._ __ _

ton is believed to have returned, and the rest of the
squadron was withdrawn lion Charleston harbour.
itahould be stated t,114‘ the exception of the
Ironsides, which lay at a` or Ike wlioie
engagement of the 7th, the remaining vessels kept
circling round in a kind of war dance, and deliver-
ing their fire against Fort Sumter with such rapi-
dity as they could attain. But the disparity of
force wielded by the attack and the defence cannot
better be shown than by stating that in less than
three hours the Confederates fired altogether more

he~ whole

than 2,000 shots, of which at least 600 are believed
to have struck the Federal vessels, whereas it is not
believed that an aggregate of 200 shots was de-
livered by the attacking squadron. So true was
the remark long ago made by Admiral Dupont that
the Federal Government, having built all these new-

fangled iron vessels, had nothing else to do but to
build iron men to man them. The evidence is abun-
dant that each shot fired from the Monitors is in-
finitely more damaging to the projectors than to the
recipients. The stunning, deafening shock of an
enormous gun discharged within so small a space as
a confined turret, the concussion imparted to the
vessel, are described as creating among the men on
board a sickness and faintness which make it im-
possible to fire another gun for 20 minutes. In
addition, the hammering of the exterior coat of these
vessels by vertical, glancing, and pointblank bolts
and projectiles of every variety is described as in-
effably distressing, and that no man who has once
been exposed to it retains the least taste for a repe-
tition of his experiences. In conclusion, it is safe
to assert that the rash empiricism which is so emi-
nently characteristic of the Anglo-American has
resulted, as regards his iron-clad vessels, in such a
failure as calm and sagacious and experienced men
had never ceased to presage. There are naval men
by dozens who openly proclaim that old-fashioned
wooden ships-of-war would have done more damage
to Fort Sumter, and received less injury themselves,
than the iron prodigies of the Yankees. How many
of these vessels are still sea-worthy and capable of
another fight remains to be seen ; but it is certain
that the accommodation and resources for repairing

iron vessels at Port Royal must be limited in the
extreme. My belief is that not more than one-half
of the iron-clad vessels which attacked Charleston
will be again available for aggressive purposes until
they have returned to Philadelphia and New York,
and that the vulnerability of all those mailed
monsters, out of which has been made a rod where-
with to scourge and terrify all foreign nations, is
incontrovertibly established. If, at 900 yards the
Keokuk could be sunk, at 1,200 the Ironsides so
crippled that she never threw more than a single
broadside, that the Monitors damaged to an extent
that will not, perhaps, be known to the public for
many months to come, but which must have been
considerable, what would be the fate of such vessels
at point-blank range P There is evidence that if the
vessels could have silenced Fort Sumter and got by
the other batteries the intention of the Federals was
to occupy a point at the mouth of the Cooper and
Wando rivers, called Hobcaw Point, from which
Charleston itself could be shelled, and to which
Federal troops could be brought by the road lead-
ing down from Ball's Bay to the north edge of
Charleston harbour. It seems to have been thought
that the Confederates could not have thrown troops
from the south to the north of Charleston harbour
if the harbour itself was held by the Federal gun-
boats, and that the marshes to the north and east
of the Cooper would have averted an attack on
Hobeaw Point by laud. It is hardly worth speculat
ing upon " ifs," but it is abundantly evident that
the landing of Federal troops in Bull's Bay and their
descent upon Charleston harbour from the north
would be a most perilous venture. The more the
approaches to and defences of Charleston are
studied, the more defensible does it appear. The
long delay in the Federal preparations, their reli-
ance upon mechanical ingenuity, rather than upon
bulldog courage, have given their opponents time
to turn Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Wilmington,
Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Richmond into
almost impregnable fortresses, which could not be
carried by any soldiers upon earth without fearful
loss, and which are little likely to be attacked by
men fighting with so little heart as is everywhere
exhibited by the mercenaries of Mr. Lincoln.
APRIL 19.
Our intelligence from the North, discarding all
mention of a " reconnoissance," and admitting an
undeniable failure and repulse before Charleston,
and the abandonment of any intention to renew the
attack " at present,"
serves but to strengthen the
opinion which is beginning to be very generally
held in the South, that the Federals are continuing
this war, not with the faintest hope or expectation
of triumph, but to gain some unseen and collateral
advantages. Some people imagine that their object
is nothing but the indulgence of vindictive revenge
and baffled spite. But there is more reason for
thinking that the chief aim and purpose of the war
is the maintenance of the Very extensive, indirect,
and surreptitious trade which has everywhere
sprung up between Secessia and Yankeedom. Facts
have been mentioned to me, and proofs amounting
almost to demonstration forthcoming, pregnant with
d"permits," and
hi ae cr l
codeseoos
fu rmeo
maybe
abouty s
bisignals,"
na lsthewhereby
blockade,removed,
ana t ha
eb theo
obstructiveness
u oldt
t commercial de-
pendence of Richmond and the South upon New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati pro-
longed yet for a few months. It is clearly seen that
if the blockade is lifted and the war stops, English
and French goods will flood Secessia, to the exclu-
sion of Yankee merchandise, which is at once costly
and execrable. Here will be the knotty point for
some new Congress of Paris to settle. It is a blockade
which can notoriously be evaded by bribery admi-
nistered by the citizens of the Power which main-
tain it to be recognised by foreign nations P Is the
legal maxim that no party is to be permitted to de-
rive benefit from his own wrong to be enforced in
regard to individuals and waived in regard to 11A-
tionii? Fancy the indignation of the rest of the
world, and notably of the Mr. Seward and Mr.
Adams of the hour, if France was blockaded by
England, and it was notorious that citizens of
London could purchase permits from the Admiralty
to run vessels through the blockade, while
vessels of all other foreign nations were, as far as
passible, excluded from French ports ! There is
anoth great reason for prolonging
the war and the worthlessness of " green-
cessation e.. the war. The
4
-rtible tents. It is scarcely possible
backs" are conv._
North one man should be able
that anywhere in the
,vthing but repudiation
to maintain to another that a...,
gravity than,
awaits the Northern debt with mo..::1 exhibit
one soothsayer coutt. according to Gibbon,

while looking another in the face. In Kentucky
those who wish to arrest the gravitation of that
State towards the Confederacy openly employ the
argument that, whereas there is no doubt that the
Federal debt will be repudiated, there is a reasonable
probability the Confederate debt will be grappled
with and the interest paid. There is no clearer
indication that the end is not yet than the price of
gold. It is idle to pretend that out of the 20,000,000
in the North there are 1,000,000 believers in the
subjugation of the South, nor can disingenuous
sophistry any longer pretend to maintain that any
other expedient than subjugation can bring the
South back. What will be the price of gold when
les choses touchent a la fin your readers can guess as
well as I. But it is obvious that if gold can be
kept down long enough to permit Yankee merchants
to run more goods into Charleston, what the Federals
have lost in meal by their repulse before that city
they will gain in malt by the maintenance of illicit
trade therewith.

Meanwhile, over the vast surface of this conti-
nent the war goes fiercely forward. A few weeks
since, when General Grant's baffled army was re-
moved from before Vicksburg, and the various col-
lateral approaches through the Yazoo Pass and Lake
Providence and elsewhere had been found impracti-
cable, it was believed that General Grant's army
would be added to General Rosecrans's, and that
together they would strive to bear down General
Johnston by weight of numbers. New counsels Bp-
' pear to have prevailed since that time at Memphis.
Time is precious; yet a few weeks and the swamps
of the Mississippi will throw Walcheren into the
shade. If any fresh attempt upon Vicksburg is
to be made before next Christmas, it must be made
in the next 60 days. Accordingly, it is believed
that a considerable force of Federal troops have
been marched from Milliken's-bend on the right
bank of the Mississippi to New Carthage, 120 miles
below. New Carthage, on the right bank, is situate
between Warrenton and Grand Gulf on the left, at
both which places the Confederates have heavy
batteries. In order to support and assist these land
forces, the Hartford and Albatross have come up,
running past the batteries at Port Hudson, and five
Federal vessels out of eight which undertook the
enterprise have run down, passing the batteries at
Vicksburg. The probability seems that this flotilla
of seven vessels, assisted by land batteries from the
right bank, will endeavour to silence the Confederate
batteries at Warrenton, then to land troops there,
and to march them upon Vicksburg. Nothing ap-
parently can be more desired by the Confederates
than that the blow should fall at Vicksburg, pre-
cisely where they are best prepared for it. Again,
in Louisiana, to which department General Kirby
Smith, an active and intelligent officer, and his
righthand man, Prince Polignac, now a Brigadier
General, have recently been consigned, there is
activity, anticipative of the great heats of summer,
among the Federals. The scene of action is along
a river called the Bayou Teche, and a heavy force
of Federal troops has driven General Taylor (the
son of President Zachary Taylor, and brother to the
first wife of President Davis) back to New Iberia,
and a junction between the Federal forces in ques-
tion and other under General Banks on the Missis-
sippi, is thought likely to be effected through the
Plaquemin Pass. Possibly an attempt to march
these troops above Port Hudson and then to carry
them up by boat to take part on the onslaught upon
Vicksburg may be made. Another theory is that
it is designed to march troops from Southern
Louisiana up to Alexandria en the Red River
(about 100 miles by water and 60 miles by land

from its month) and to destroy the gunboats which
it is suspected that the Confederates are building
up(,n that stream. The bead-quarters of General
Kirby Smith are at Alexandria, and it has been for
some time the principal Confederate depot in that
region. Be this as it may, there is but one feeling
here with regard to all these moves in the neigh-
bourhood of the Mississippi,—lt is that " le jeu ne
vaut pas la chandelle." No possible success of the
Federals in that quarter would change the ineradi-
cable sentiment of the rebel heart and make com-
merce with the Yankees a possibility. So long as

the war lasts, and the Confederates are driven by
pressure of want to buy goods anywhere that they
are obtainable in Secessia, smuggled Yankee com-
modities may command purchasers ; when the war
ceases it is hardly necessary to say that with it
ceases also the market in the South for Yankee
manufactures. The great products of the West—
its pork and bacon, its Indian corn and wheat and
flour—will continue to find their way to Southern
markets, but, putting sectional animosities aside,
how will the cutlery, the cotton manufactures, and
the woollen fabrics of New England bear the com-
petition of Europe ?

APRIL 22.

A delay in the expedition of this letter enables
me to add a postscript. In many other quarters as
well as in Louisiana there is activity of operations.
In North Carolina the Confederate General D. H.
Hill has been for many days besieging a town
called Washington, situate on the Tar River, and
held by a body of Federals under General Foster.
The exact purpose of General Hill's operations has
been, I believe, to hold the Federals within their
intrenchments while foraging parties of Confede-
rates scoured the adjoining counties of North Caro-
lina and carried off large amounts of bacon and
corn. This morning it is announced that General
Hill has raised the siege of Washington and fallen
back, so that either his purpose has been gained
and his forage secured, or he has received tidings of
the approach of Federal reinforcements, and has
fallen back to his own selected ground to await
them ; the former supposition being, I believe, the
truth. Simultaneously, a considerable enterprise
has been undertaken by General Longstreet, at the
head of a large body of Confederate troops, of which
the main object also is to secure the large stores of
bacon and corn which are to be found in the coun-
ties of North Carolina which are adjacent to the
Chowan river. Gen. Longstreet has advanced on
the Federal intrenchments which stretch in front of
the town of Suffolk from Nasemond river on the
right to the Dismal Swamp on the left, and is be-
lieved to have got some troops in between the right
flank of the Federals and the Nansemond. Exagge-
rated reports of Gen. Longstreet's purposes and of
his numbers have appeared in the Northern press,
and Gen. Hooker has thrown heavy reinforcements
into Norfolk and Yorktown. It is understood the
purpose of Gen. Longstreet is to hold the Federals
within their lines while forage and railroad iron is
secured throughout North Carolina, and not to fight
unless the Federals come out to meet him. It is
very possible, now that large• reinforcements have
swelled the Federal numbers, that there may be a
fight. Among Gen. Longstreet's troops are two of
the best divisions in the army, Gen. Hood's and
Gen. Pickett's, and also a new division, at the head
of which has been placed Gen. Jenkins, of South
Carolina. I have perfect faith that Gen. Longstreet,
backed and supported by such subordinates, will
give a good account of his opponents. Lastly, in the
vicinity of IV illiamsburg Gen. Wise, formerly Go-
evaegrneorraCitifdVimirpguilllsiaiv,ebnentewrghyo hteasanetoiwvetr
field, has made a descent upon the Federal forces
the doves in Yorktown. Everywhere in the
proximity Confederates hive
proximity of Richmond t
Gene-
taken the initiative, except in the case
that neighbourhood, and has considerably flu.ttetrede
serviceaon sf transferred rei ennde
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PRICE..... ..4d.
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orders at Charleston will be transferred to the com-
mand of General Johnston at Tullahoma. I am still
apprehensive that at best the Confederates will not
be able to fight more than a level battle at Tulla-
homa; but, after all, such a battle is all that they
want. What will be the effect upon the tactics of
the North when during the month of May 200,000
of their best men go out of service it is hard to say;
but curious speculations are indulged on this sub
ject here. If the war advances with anything like
equality of success, there will, before three months
have passed, be imported into the strife new ele-
ments, with respect to which it is not necessary to
say more than that they will incline ithe balance
more than ever to the Confederate side. I have
never thought it necessary to enlarge upon the topic
of the lifting of the blockade of Charleston, of Gal-
veston, and of Sabine Pass by superior force of the
Confederates. It is apparent to everybody that
such questions will be judged, not in accordance
with broad and guiding principles of such an wnis
fatuus as international law, but in accordance with
the inclination of the nation sitting in judgment.
Whatever may have been the case at Charleston, it
would be idle for Mr. Seward to deny that the
blockade at Galveston was lifted for many days,
and it was renewed in a fashion not not pre-
scribed by Vattel and Hautefeuille. Still few
persons on this continent believe that Eng-
land or any other European Power would
undertake war with a moribund and irritated Power
I because the blockade of an obscure and remote port
was broken and then unorthodoily renewed. But,
none the less, the time is not far distant when ana-
logous questions will exact the judgment of the
British Cabinet, under circumstances more peremp-
tory and instant, and in reference to more important
places than Galveston. It has been seen that the
despised Confederates have produced a gun which
is vastly superior to the product of the blatant and
self-confident mechanics of the North. It has been
seen that the iron-plated vessels, the growth of two
years of boastful efforts, are a delusion and a snare.
A few months more will show whether on their own
element the Yankees are such autocrats as they

imagine.
Considerable uneasiness was last week felt in,
well-informed quarters in regard to the health of
President Davis. The President has had a very
severe bronchial affection, and his cough has been
exhaustive and distressing. He is, happily, con-
siderably better, and those who know him best say
that he is vastly stronger than he appears, and that he
is immeasurably better than when he was elected to
the post which he has so ably filled. It is impossible
that a man of strong character and prejudices should
escape unpopularity or give universal satisfaction ;
but increasing knowledge of the President and of
the difficulties he has had to contend with fills
me daily with more admiration of his calmness,
sagacity, patience, and indomitable moral courage.
There is no calculable sum at which the value
of his life at this moment to the :ended Confederacy
could be adequately estimated. Unlike most of his
countrymen, the President's habits are healthy, and
his practice is to ride about 20 miles on horseback
almost daily. The extreme lateness and coldness of
the spring have had an unfavourable influence upon
the President's bronchitis, and have arrested the
early growth of spring grass, which is so much
needed for the half-starvel horses of the army at
Frederickburg.