The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-15 00:00:00

THE CT. VIL WAR IN, AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, JUNE 3.

Gen. Grant capture Vicksburg ? Will Gen.
Ls k capture Washington ? These are the questions
teat are asked from day to day in all public places,
and that are answered according to the political bias
and hopes of the respondents, rather than according
to any just estimate of the facts and the probabili-
ties. Ten days have now elapsed since Gen. Grant
found it impossible to take the little stronghold of
the Mississippi by storm, and sat down before it to
try and reduce it by the slow and scientific, but to
the Americans the very uncongenial operations of a
regular siege. If the Confederates are not short of
provisions—which few believe—the probabilities are
that Gen. Joseph Johnstone, largely reinforced, will
within a few days, or a week at the furthest, com-
pel Gen. Grant to raise the siege and accept battle.
Grans, if defeated, may escape by his gunboats on
the Yazoo and the Mississippi, but the Federal cause
will have received a heavy blow, and the pride of
The Northern people a humiliating corrective. It,
on the other hand, Gen. Johnstone be defeated, Vat
"beginning of the end" will be no nearer than be-
fore ; new obstructions to the navigation of the
river will be raised by the Confedenates, and the
wave of war will roll and dash over other rocks
and impediments, whose position none at this
moment can tell, or even suspect. The balance of
opinion both in New York and Washington is not
hopeful on the rsubject. The cup of joy was so
near to the lip when Mr. Lincoln, through an
enthusiastic correspondent, supposed to be wholly
trustworthy and well-informed, notified to the
world 11 days ego that the fall of Vicksburg was
morally certain to occur within a few hours, that
the slip has been more than usually vexatious, and
the disappointment more than usually acute. Nor
as regards the ulterior movements of Gen. Lee
ie the feeling much more sanguine. If that
able commander really meditates an attack upon
Washington, and considers himself strong enough
to attempt it," there is a very general impression
that he may srseceed, not unmingled with a hope
among the large classes who are weary of the war,
and utterly incredulous that it ever can be ended
during Mr. Lincoln's term of office, that he will not
only capture Washington, but the President and
his Ministers, and hold them as hostages for the
immediate declaration of an armistice to debate the
conditions of peace and separation.
Since the repulse of General Hooker, the friends
of peace have increased in number and in boldness,
but the addresses penned by the leading Democrats,
and the resolutions that are carried and the speeches
that are made at their public 'meetings, are with
few exceptions singularly illogical, if not absurd.
Mr. Wall, of New Jersey, and Mr. Benjamin Wood,
of this city, declare for peace, pure and simple, and
for a recognition of the Southern Confederacy if
the Southern people, after an armistice, shall
solemnly reassert by their votes in Convention or
elsewhere their determination to maintain their in-
dependence ; but the bulk of the Democratic party
have not reached that upper plank of the true plat-
form. They stand on a much lower elevation, and
continue, even while they vaunt most loudly their
love of peace and the absolute necessity of securing
it to their bleeding and distracted country, to talk
idly of " their opposition to anv terms of compro-
mise that fail to restore the Union. and save the
Constitution." How can peace be possible, while
men of influence talk thus ? They virtually admit
that the Government is right in prosecuting the
war, but do not see that they lay themselves open
to the imputation of faction in opposing all the war
measures which the Government deems necessary to
conquer a peace, upon the only terms which they
themselves consider imperative. The great peace
meeting to be held this evening at the Cooper In-
stitute will decide whether the Democratic party,
or any large section of it, will continue much longer
to stultify itself in a manner so flagrant.
The case of Mr. Vallandigham continues to be a
thorn in the side of the Administration. Almost
universally condemned as the conduct of General
Burnside has been, Mr. Lincoln had not the pene-
tration to discover that his blundering dragoon and
his servile judge were both in error, or the tact or
grace to rectify their mistakes. The Confederate
Government has displayed more wisdom, and while
its treatment of the honest and fearless exile has
been consistent with its own dignity, the disposition
it has made of him will very greatly embarrass Mr.
Lincoln. Refesing to admit that the Confederate
States were a penal settlement, to which the Wash-
ington Government could transport either its martyrs
or its criminals, or to allow Mr. Vallandigham to
remain in the South unless he would take the oath
of allegiance, the Confederate authorities have re-
ceived him with marked kindness, and instead of ex-
truding him forcibly from their soil by the way in
which he came, and so transferring him to the dun-
geons of Fort Warren, they have, it appears, given
him permission to proceed to Charleston, Savannah,
or Mobile, with the understanding that he will leave,
the country by whichever of those ports he may
find most convenient. By this means Mr. Vallan-
digham will have little or no difficulty in running
the blockade and making his way to Nassau or
Havannah, where he can decide at his leisure
whether he will return to his own country by way
of New York, or whether he will proceed to Canada
via Halifax. Were he bold enough to land at New
York, the Democratic party would give him a recep-
tion which would cast into the shade all the ovations
of the war, and Mr. Horatio Seymour—who de
nounced the arrest in such eloquent and emphatic
terms as would have rendered him also liable to
seizure in the dead of night, and trial by court-
martial, if he were not Governor of a powerful State
and Commander-in-Chief of its army—would doubt
less justify the welcome by his words, if he did not
grace it with his presence. This is the course re-
commended by such of the advanced Democrats as
love the Union mach, but who love liberty and the
Constitution still more ; and which would either
compel the Federal Government to join issue with
the authorities of a loyal State that has more largely
than any other supported the war with men, money,
and credit, or forego once and for ever the high-
handed illegal acts of military power that have done
so much to bring it into discredit and disfavour.
On the other hand, were Mr. Vallandigham to avoid
New York and take refuge on British territory,
''within a stone's throw of the flourishing city of De-
troit, which has direct railway communication of
,about 200 miles with his own home at Dayton, he
'would place himself in constant communication with
his friends in his native State ; and not all the mi-
YtarY power at the command of General Burnside
*could prevent the Democratic party from nominat-
ing for Governor, and carrying the election
-the Fealti‘l not unanimous vote—unless, indeed,
declare uhieral A.dministration were insane enough to
(election untoil state
of
siege,
and prevent any
'under any aspecte
conclusiont of the war. Considered
critical one for theecehttase of Mr. Vallandigham is a
.no less than for the
comfort of Mr. Lincoln and bide bi.da fair-to be memo-
rable for ever in the hillory of American liberty.
At the peace meeting which
sa to be held in this
city this evening, under theiauittce tardily
that wing
of the Democratic party which
declared
itself in favour of an armistice, the outrage/1
pon Mr
Vallandigham will, in all probability, form the main
staple
of the oratory and the chief inspiratio::: tfet
orators. On Monday considerable anxiety
by timid people in consequence of a report industri.
ous:y circulated that Gen. Wool, under orders from'
Washington, would station troops at the doors of
• the Cooper Institute and in the body of the hall to
But all fear of a breach
intimidate the speakers.
of the peace has subsided. Scarcely anybody be-
lieves that the Government will act so
N
madly New
York, whatever it might do in Ohio, unless it deli-
berately wished to provoke outrage, as an excuse for
the foregone conclusion of placing this State under
the operation of martial law. But this is an amount
of factuity of which its most violent opponents do
not yet suspect it ; not because its desires do not
point in that direction, but because the bulk of the
labouring classes are opposed to the war, and to the
conscription, and because the Governor is not a
Ministerialist or a Republican, but a thorough-going
Democrat, jealous of State Rights, and determined
at all hazards to maintain the independence, is cer-
tain. The threat, though unofficial and probably