The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-04 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the. • correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Nov. 20.
Those who b .ave read the seven or eight letters
preceding this will feel no great surprise on hearing
that General Burnside is in some danger of being
"gobbled up'" (to use an elegant American phrase)
by the Confederates. He may yet offer a glorious
and successful resistanne, or he may adroitly slip
through hi .s enemy's fingers, but that ho is in a
somewhat awkward predicament his best admirers
are wet unwilling to admit. The telegrams are as
yet, according to their wont, obscure and contra-
dictory, but this mach can be satisfactorily made
out—that Burnside's advanced forces at London and
Kingston came into contact with the Southerners
wader Longstreet, and that, after a series of sharp
skirmishes, which lasted from Saturday, the 14th,
till the ensuing Thursday (yesterday), the Federal
forces had been driven into Knoxville, and the place
was completely in vested. Gen. Shackelford was
attacked by the Confederates on the other side of
the Holster), three, miles above Knoxville, and held,
it is said, the enemy in check during the whole of
Su uday, It is evident, however, that the Confede-
rate movement took place after a long-meditated
nd well-conducted plan, so as topress simultaneously
on all Burnsirle's forces, and shut them up in Knox-
ville, the only place they now hold in East Tennessee.
The lessee of the Federals in these various en-
counters bzve been rather heavy; by their own
accounts teetween 200 and 300 on Monday, and 150
on the fohlowing day. General Sanders was borne
off the field badly wounded. The Federals, how-
ever, console themselves with the hope that their
enemy's loss must have been far more severe-1,000
on Mon day, 400 or 500 on Tuesday.
By the side of this momentous and possibly
ominous episode the other recent incidents of, the
l
war sink into comparative insignificance; "All
quiet" on the Rapidan and Chattanooga, with the
usual thundering canonade against Fort Sumter—
thesfl times
hoisted shot down several times but as many
hoisted up again, and for the hundredth time within
the last four or five months, the confident predic-
tion of the surrender of the fort. The pen wearies j
wit i writing down the same things again and again,
The affair at Buzzard Prairie, on the east side of
Be.you Teche, in Louisiana, on the 3d, turns out to
heave been a more serious one for the Federals than
hi id at first been supposed. Washburne's column
st in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 577 men.
Ti ie whole of the Indiana 77th was captured, the
60th Indiana and 96th Ohio suffered severely.
These, be it remembered, are Federal accounts. It
appears that Washburne's force only owed its safety
t o its excellent artillery. The disaster is, indeed,
accounted for by the alleged fact that the Confede-
rates were as five to one (5,000 against 1,800), but
the presence of such superior forces in Louisiana is
a sufficient evidence of the amount of work the
North has yet to accomplish before the rebellion is
crushed, even in those territories on the main Foints
of which the stars and stripes have been waving
triumphantly
for the best part of a twelvemonth.
With all their millions under arms, somehow the
llederals seem always to contrive to find themselves
can the battlefield against overwhelming numbers.
It certainly, however, is no easy matter to damp
the epiriis of these wonderful Yankees. Whatever
happens is for the best. Driven from one position
they take up the next. They allow no reverse to
she ke their confidence of ultimate success. At the
time that General Grant was sent to supersede
Ru sencranz and take the command of all the armies
of the South-West it was expected that " a bloody
and decisive" victory would crush the rebellion at the
close of the season. A month has now elapsed,
and hardly an inch of ground has been gained in
Tennessee or Georgia—nay, the chances are that
Burnside wily lose more than he has gained, and for
the rest the usual drawn game is being played be-
tween the Rapidan and the Rappahannock. But
now those same Yankees who were " cock sure" of
signal success in the field begin to discover that
11! they had better stand sti,ll." The South is a vast
citadel which cannot be taken by storm. It must,
therefore, be reduced by blockade.
It may be worth while for the reader to follow
the train of Yankee argument. The rebel army in
the field, they reckon, cannot exceed 200,000 men.
Of theee about 55,000 are under Lee in Virginia,
65,000 more obey Bregg's orders on the borders of
Georgia. The rest are scattered about doing
garrison duty ; 25,000 men are 'still beyond the
Mississippi. The Federals, on the other hand, have
300,000 combatants in active service, in the front;
their effective forces are actually three to one to
those of their. adversaries. These latter, indeed,
avow that "the Yankees have one army too many
for them?, Each party tries to multiply its forces
by shifting them rapidly from east to west, from
one camp to another. The Federals are stretched
on a line nearly twice as long as that of the
Southerners ; but the means of locomotion of which
the former dispose more than compensate for the
disadvantage of doable distances. The Confede

racy is like a vast beleaguered fortress. Reduced
to its present dimensions it is a square, two sides of
which are made by the sea from Baltimore all
"round the coast to New Orleans, and the two others
by the Mississippi
of
~,, from its mouth to the confluent
Ohio,Tel'iluieste and further to the meeting of the
French Tennessee the Cumberland with what the
of the Alabama
call La Belle Riciere. With the ex-
ceptionttAlabama and the Tombigbee, all the
watercourses
As the Cooed:: in the hands of the Northerners
water,
att:es have lost almost all communica-
tion by
of laore they also sadly deficient in all
their means
oweboorat otion by land. Their rail-
ways are used
rails and rolling stock ; and
they have done next to nothing
of nothing to make up for the
wear and tear
eixtraordinary war move-
beenment. Not half a dozen
etiocomotive engines have '
either manufaetur
outbreak of the war, am
In:: imported since the
than 150 have been
rendered unfit for use, ueresesi and waggons are
also getting scarce, and the cou
ply themselves with what their aerates must sup-
to take from their enemy. Thai4:re,lillas manage
trary, brought all its energies to beaTi on the con-
to
of locomotion. The war has been a
gocacin its me
its
mans
iu
railway companies, and they never were n.(l
u more
.
capital trim ; horses were never more pleat
ever, the state of the currency being takeui:tolienor
sideration, were they to be had at more re
'lBcanbi
- e
prices. For the last two years the North has and no
other business than this war. It has strained every
nerve in its furtherance; it pursues it to the ton
extent of its boundless means ; it bears its burdens
without apparent distress.
The blockade is now almost comPlete• Its effects
bogln to ho ovident since the fall of Vicksburg and
Port Hudson. It is even now reducing the rebels
to extremity. There is sore famine in the South.

The Confederates Lave lost largo and valuable tracts
—Tennessee. Mississippi, ald the region beyond.
Georgia and Alabama could grow corn, but the

planters are stuck in their work, for a debased cur

rency and the dreaded requisitions of the army are
but indifferent stimulants to agricultural industry.
Crops are said to be short at the South. There is
real destitution and threatened famine in Dixie.
The Federal captives are an unbearable burden to
their captors, and from 1,000,000 to 1,800,000
negroes, driven into the contracted Confederacy
from the invaded Border States, are eating up the
fellows fights the Union cause whenever he gets a

S 3 falr the
llliitker_politicians, whose words I have
almost quoted
other side. That atILIY. Now for the answer on the
of the Confederacy si there is distress in some narts
Riealict not to be disputed. The
Federal prisoners at
been submitted to dire mond and elsewhere have
suffering,, No meet, it is
said, " had been furnished to themo
At Belle Island they " feasted for 12 days.',
Ives, Touching the hardships of these captives,
&c.
to a very
how-
ever, it is difficult to get at the tru?:.arFnip
in
e:enhthan to
recent period nothing was more
hear the contending parties loud
pectiovteher.,B
praises of the manner in which their respective
Boners were dealt with. That food has been scarce
and very scarce, in Richn.ond. we have no reason
lo doubt, though we may heltate to believe that
any part of the active Confederate army ever "pi,_
slated on half rations." The Richmond people were
hard-up for their own food, and had but little to