The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-02 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morninz
This day at Two o'clock 73
Barometer-30.04.
Wind—S. ; fresh breeze, and fine weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Txis DAY.—?Horning, 2h. 29m.—Afternoon, 2h. s!m
TO.KORROW..Morning, 3h. 20m.—Afternoon, 3h. 44w.

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-Vs "

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1863.

Although the last tidings from America,
brought yesterday to our shores by the. Nova
Scotia, add but scantily to our previous know-
ledge of the course of the war, they possess
a peculiar value, inasmuch as they rectify our last
fragments of information. The accounts brought to
us by the preceding packet appear, after this revi-
sion, to have been in one cr two particulars very
considerably exaggerated. The Confederates who
have actually crossed the Potomac, it seems, num,
bar no more than a few thousand men altogether.
Along the banks of that river, however, in readi-
ness to follow their commands or, the
shortest
notice, loitered the rest of the Southern
soldiers making up the sum total of the
grand army, under the banners of LEE. chat arraY
es a whole is estimated, moreover, we now learn, at
an aggregate of from 80,000 to 100,000 men. Sup-
posing which estimate to be correct, the numbers,
it is observable, are slightly in excess of these tap-
pertaining to the Federal army under HOOKER.
Very slightly, however, if at all, can it be in excess
of the Federals under HOOKER seeing that
General LEE has refrained hitherto from assailing
his antagonist, or from (-as yet) crossing the Potomac.
A portion of his troops, LEE has sent across it is true
but only a portion, as already remarked,numbering a
very few thousand. These, when the last advices
left, were still in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
They are there manifestly enough less for purposes
of reconnoitring than either as an advanced guard or
as a decoy. Probably the next intelligence received
from that part of the seat of war will clearly
enough indicate the purpose cf General LEE in de-
ciding upon this partial and apparently as yet
merely episodical movement. Hagerstown, although
hitherto the only place on the left side of the Potomac,
occupied by the Confederate troops, the comparative
few of them at least thrown across it north of
'Washington, certainly appears to have been occu-
pied in something like earnest, stores having been
transported thither in abundance I Hagerstown
had been conr,tituted, in point of fact, the head-
quarters of the expeditionary force in Maryland,
whence it might venture at pleasure upon future
'raids into Pennsylvania.

A Lonfident statement meanwhile appears to have
been put forth through the New York. Tribune to
the effect that General LEE had moved his
main army in force upon Centreville, there
defeating the Federals under HOOKER, and
defeating them so completely that, according to the
corroborated account of IVANHATTAN, "HOOKER
[meaning hisimmediate entourage, we presume]
had been cut to pieces, end his army captured."
R,tther a confused, almost we. had said a contradic-
tory, way of putting it. But, even when expressed
thug confusedly, MANHATTAN'S statement it 3 SO ex.-
!c e
e:,,1ng17 Po4itivo of its kind, that it surely must
De 'f :t moderate amount of foundation
rlsmann of Defeat fallvri