The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-07 00:00:00

THE C.

RICA,

'(From the Special Correspondent of the Tunes.)
NEW YORK, Oct. 23,
We have been for the whole week on the eve of
momentous events, but are left at the end with mere
fe ors—or hopes. The armies of the Potomac have
been going through all the figures of a regular
quadrille. Gen. Lee's army, or a part of it, drove
Meade up to the defences of Washington, but has
now fallen back towards its former base of opera-
tions at Lynchburg. Lee's forces are said to be be-
yond. the Rappahannock, probably concentrated
near Culpepper. The advance of the Federals is
posted at Warrenton. Gen. Meade was at Wash-
ington on Thursday, in consultation with the Pre-
sidont, by whom he was, in all probability, urged to
push on vigorously on the offensive.
The aim of General Lee in his forward movement
is clear to no man, It was apparently not to offer
battle, nor to obtain. provisions. By the mere
feint of a flank attack, he rove Meade from his
position, and so effected his retreat as to break up
about 20 miles of the Alexandria and Grange Rail-
way, thus materially widening the distance between
him and his 'Adversary. This was, perhaps, the only
object he /"tad in view—to steal a march on the
enemy, r.so as to have leisure to lead or to send part
of his forces against Burnside, who was advancing
013011 West Virginia, and had pushed his vanguard,
it Was said, as far as Abingdon.
We have no news whatever of warlike operations
either at Chattanooga or Charleston. Gen. Rosen-
cranz is laid on the shelf; not, it would seem, with-
out sufficient reasons. It was whispered at Cincin-
nati, immediately upon the affair at Chickamauga,
that Rosencraz had in that battle performed neither
the duty of a commander nor of a soldier. The
charge is now loudly repeated, and gains credit. I
need not repeat all that is said to his disparagement.
The man had to contend with political and even re•
ligious antipathies. "He asked the Catholic
churches at Cincinnati to say masses for the success
of his army.'' There was no great harm in that,
surely, though a fuss is made about it. Rosencranz is
of German extraction, sprung from a Jewish
family who embraced Catholicism, and brought
into the Church of their choice all the zeal of new
converts. The General's brother is Bishopof Cincin-
nati, and it was natural that the layman should
throw a good job in the way of his clerical relative.
The General's real offence, more probably, vras dis-
regard of orders from Washington—either by going
beyond Chattanooga against such orders, or by ad-
vancing more cautiously than seemed desirable to the
"wisea.cres of the War Department," That the autho-
rities at Washington, with the President at their
head, are always ready to find fault with the slow-
ness of their commanding officers is a fact not to
be disputed. When in the killing heat of last July
some one suggested that Meade's inaction was per-
haps owing to the exhausting influence of the
season, Mr. Lincoln answered rather tartly, "If
our troops are hot in Virginia, we are burning here
at Washington"—burning that is, with impatience.
Rosencranz, and his subordinates, M'Cook and
Crittenden, are not the only generals likely to fall
Victims to the displeasure of the central Govern-
ment. Gen. Meade himself is said to have ten-
dered his resignation, and Generals Sedgewick and
Sicletes are already boldly named as his probable
successors. At Charleston, also, if we may believe
public rumour, Admiral Dahlgren is about to be re-
moved from the command of the fleet, where, it is
asserted, he will be superseded by Captain Thomas
Tamer, of the Ironsides. The man wanted in that
place, however, in the opinion of some persons here,
is "our fire-proof salamander, Admiral Farragut."
With all these changes contemplated or accom-
plishraY. the public are mightily pleased, and there
is no limit to the splendid successes that are gene-
rally anticipated. The Western army, under Gen.
Gre.nt, is described, with the proverbial Yankee
loge of superlatives, as the " biggest host ever as-
sembled in one theatre of war by any one Govern.
anent in modern times." It combines the forces
hitherto led into the field by Grant himself, on the
Mississippi, with the Chattanooga army now pass-
ing from the hands of Rosencranz into those of
Gen. Thomas, with that of Gen. Burnside on the
border between East Tennessee and West Virginia,
and the flying column under Gen. Hooker, now at
• Stevenson, on the south-west, on the Alabama fron-
, tier. All these troops, exceeding 200,000 com-
• batants, may at a given time be brought to bear
' upon Bragg's army on the defiles of Georgia. If
iltleado or his expected successor on the one side,
and Grant with all his auxiliaries on the other, do
not " wind up this eventful month of October with
some stunning decisive victory" the lovers of the
Union ceaise will be grievously disappointed.
However " stunning," it is difficult to conceive
how tray battle can be decisive in this wearisome
Amer ican contest. These Northern people have an
overweening conceit of the resources of their coun-
try. " The Europeans," they say, "talk of America
as' f it was only a country ; they forget that we are
a continent, a world. What are the puny efforts
that could be put forth even by such Powers as
France and England compared with the energies of
a new country, to whom the loss of half a million
of men or the outlay of 2,000 million of dollars are
only as a few drops of blood taken from the veins

of a young giant ? The last census shows an in.

crease in wealth between 1850 and 1860 of 128 per
cent., the increase of population being only 35 per
cent. The might of the nation, as represented by
wealth, is inexhaustible, and we defy any man to
show on this, the third year of a most wasteful war,
04 4_3: symptom of decline either in the splendour of
cities or in the prosperity of our land."
The Americans seems to forget, however, that the
argt,rli_
ot tells both ways. If the Union is not I a
into but not
it a continent, the Confederacy is in its
Their vutoeisterritory, but less than half a world.
barrier ag,int.of space presents an insurmountable
Grant had
antiveefficient conquest. Unless General
even the most', stleague boots, how could he turn
it—to any avail:mil:ling" victory—were he to gain
this "eventful mottzurpose ? Will the whole of
whole fall of the Tear `enable
October"—will even the
he
175.anable him only to march
,through the lands
tiaell,o.dertaken to subdue ?,
Whatever may be
mabeissitudes of this year's
campaign, there are not
selves that it will bring us nearer
who flatter them-
..rrer to the end of the
war ; and if war is to be
' uLnon:e
tdi: they are not
easy as to the means of filling
ranks of the
fast-thinning army. The President'se
, eat
eirorartastiaorne
proela
for a levy of 300,000 men has trot wr
most favourable impression. though ..„. 'light the
made to give it the most cheerful
we are told, " Men and m
reBP.3nae• To
carry on a war,
titkaY are
required ;" but the people here had brought tt,,,,,,,
she
selves to think, not perhaps without some ---
8 met
reason, that, to a great extent, " money make
and men make money." The State, they said, ch
commands the means to arm a certain number of
mercenaries has it also in its power to use these
hired men in the impressment of new recruits; and
when an army is once on foot it can be turned into
an instrument equally efficient in plundering the
enemy or in grinning the people. The strength of
a nation may be indifferently gathered together by
free enlistment, or by forcible conscription. It may
be held, as in England, that the law
has under no
circumstances any control over the person
of the
subject, and it may be established, as in France, or
more consistently in Prussia, that every citizen is
vitally interested in the defence of the country—
liable, therefore, to compulsory military service,
whether at regularly appointed periods, or on any
extraordinary emergency. The government of the
United States seemed to think that the two methods
could be usefully wised up and alternated. When
the first
patriotism, of real volunteers, impelled by
shop for the began
to slacken they opened a huge
purchase of hirelings, and when the
mercenary market was also exhausted they resorted
to the draught, which
was only a clumsy attempt to
make money by
men as it put the screw on the
citizen, and called for "his money or his life,,,
allowing to the recruits the
power to buy them.
selves off, of which they were b
y no means loth to
avail themselves. .

The draught as it was contrived yielded from
9,000,000 dots. to 10,000,000
dole,; but not only
Spas failure in itself, so far as they
was it an
mak 1 of Inca', was concerned, but it convinced
g
the mosteabb2rn iu the Government of the utter