The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-30 00:00:00

TUE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY•

(From the Bpeeial Correspondent of the Imes.)
CONFEDERATE CAMP, NEAR
CHATTANOOGA, Oct. 19.
Ten days, utterly void of incident so far as these
two western armies are concerned, have flown since

the date of my last letter ; and before turning my
face again towards Virginia, I desire to record the
impression which after three weeks' residence on
the spot and after much thoughtful observation the

army of Gen. Bragg has produced upon my mind.
There are obvious and not unfrequent occasions
when the chronicler of events on this continent,

although writing for the instruction of a neutral
cation which will read his words at a distance of

4,000 miles from the spot where they were penned,
is compelled to exercise far-sighted vigilance as to
his utterances, lest the great disparity of strength
already existing between the belligerents should be
still further augmented to the prejudice of the

`weaker by indiscreet or thoughtless revelations.
Such revelations, it is obvious, could not be made

by anybody, however disposed to make them, who

writes from the North. They usually have refer-
ence to such matters as shortcomings in supplies
of war material occasioned by the blockade, and
which, at the commencement of this war, were so

grave and numerous, that astonishment as to the
possibility of successful Southern resistance grows
and increases in proportion to your knowledge of
Southern poverty and weakness during the first 12
months of the war. Many months have now flown
since the supply of saltpetre—the most important
ingredient of gunpowder—became so abundant as to
extinguish all apprehension in regard to the abirtty
of the gunpower mills at Charlotte, Columbia,and
Augusta, to work full time not only during the
,
present year, without an increase of
also far into the year to come. supply but
But there is a
second class of revelations with respectit not for the
to which
reticence would not be necessary were
dangers which beset all such letters as this. There
would be no objection to nay furnishing such infor-
mation about the
movements, numbers, and de-
signs (so far as the immediate future is concerned)
of Confederate armies as would be not without in-
terest for the English public, were I assured that
hay letter would not be read in the North until its
return thither from England. But no such cer-
tainty can be felt in reference to letters which
have to be smuggled through the blockade, and
which are liable to be overhauled and read in Wash-
ys of their being written.
ingtcn within a few days
There is a third class of revelations which demand
from a foreign correspondent no scanty exercise of
tact and. discretion—those which exhibit weak
joints in the harness of the Southern Confederacy.
It is htv:ctly necessary I should state, that the stran-
ger who can reside 12 or 14 months in a weak and
small community which is wrestling superbly with
a gigantic opponent—who can witness daily traits
and incidents of sublime heroism and uncomplain-
ing endurance in almost every household which he
visita--who is cognisant of the enormities committed
by an enemy more unscrupulous than the hordes of
Attila, and more larcenous than the bands of Wil-
liam de la Marck•—who can see the poor suffering
half-starved units which compose a Southern army
launched against an antagonist vastly superior in
num her, in equipment, and in food, yet driving him
headlong from the field in nine battles out of ten—

arid who cannot sympathise loyally and cordially
with the agony of a noble people—must be either
more or less than human. But although amicus
Plato, magis arnica veritag, and therefore, in the
belief that an honest opinion, emanating from a not
unfriendly observer, will in the end be advantageous
to the Confederacy, although possibly distasteful
to some whom I would not willingly wound, I will
frankly state my opinion of the prospects and
condition of Gen. Bragg's army, as I have now seen
it.

It will be necessary to carry your readers back for
some months. It will be remembered that when
Gen. Beauregard retreated silently and successfully,
some time after the battle of Shiloh, from Corinth,
leaving Gen. Halleck, who was then facing him, as
ignorant of his movements as was the rest of the
Norte, be fell back with what remained of his army
to Tuptils, in Mississippi. Shortly after wards Gen.
Beauregard's health gave way. He withdrew to
some springs in Alabama, was relieved from his
command, and Gen. Bragg tool,: his place. Gen.
Bragg found the army, which had at one time been

the finest force numerically which the Confederates
ever had in the field, reduced to 40,000 men in the
worst possible condition of discipline. deciminated
by dQsertioU consequent upon Beauregard's long in.
action at Corinth, and swept by disease. It was
an occasion for the display of many of the finest
qualities of a general, as a promoter of discipline,
and an organiser of imperfect or broken-down army
departments; and everybody cheerfuily, and most
. people gratefully, confesses th.at Gen. Bragg was
equal to the occmsion. He exhibited much of that
firmness at.td indifference to popularity which are
so rare an-ioug republican generals, and, acting with
a lofty B+,U-reliance, he took upon his own shoulders
the odium of causing some 12 or 15 men to be shot
without., court martial; and finally, by the total

expulsion of whisky from his camp, and by divers
o_ tti. ee salutary measures, restored his army to a
tirgner degree of discipline and efficiency than it had
er before attained. In the operations of the
autumn of 1862, Bragg manifested superiority over
• Troayble Federal commander, Gen. Buell, whom he
even%eaul fo
tlyef. Nashville and Tennessee, and whom he
border of x. reed up to Louisville, on the northern
iatucky. It is true that Gen. Bragg's
strategy iti Kentucky has not escaped damaging cri- i
ticism ; bat it
must not be forgotten that at a critical
moment
GenevExiaai ll osencranz defeated the Confede-
rate General
Dorn at Holly Springs, and thus
imposed upon the
main army of the Confederates in
the West the
neeeshitY of falling back. There is
abundant ground for the assertion that up to the
battle of Murfreesborreout h General Bragg stood high
with his own army e
With the country, and had
shown himself deserving the confidence of both.
But, it seems to me, that of
even at the battle of Mur-
freesborough he displayed little
Rosencranz of the energy and
tenacity against General
previously shown against General
it which he had
well known, and not denied, -I believe, 461. It is now
North, that Rosencranz, after v
ttrreven in the
must have fallen back in 24 hours g
esborough,
anticipated and relieved him by being 4
the
et
firstßragg
retire; nor can any attentive observer be ~. to
to
the fact that thou pirit of the old proverb tbetl3,l,i,B
is a good dog, t Hold fast is a better," Which is
said
to be constantly in Rosencranz' mouth, strikingly
animates the whole of the Federal general's strategy
and may possibly induce him at this moment ye
cling so adhesively to Chattanooga, in spite of the
embarrassments and discomforts of his position there.
After the battle of Murfreesborough, the disaffection
which had solong slumbered among the rank and file
of Bragg's army, engendered by the Draconian se-
verity of his rule, extended to his generals of division
and to their subordinates, pervaded the officers of the
army, and became chronic and deep seated. It is my
belief that from this moment General Bragg ceased to
be qualified efficiently to command an army of Re-
publicans animated by a spirit so high and haughty
as that which pervades his troops, who demand from
their commanding general qualities and personal at-
tributesi which inspire not only respect, but also en-
thusiasm and affection. It is also my belief that the
motives which led Gen. Bragg to cling
tenaciously
to his command, and President Davis Davi to turn a deaf
ear to all suggestions for his
removal, were pure and
in in tcommendable. Nevertheless, I think that both
s "e" they were f eau..d ed in error. Gen. Bragg
-would have better consihted his fair fame had he
escaped from a Position where it was inevitable that
he would convert
the narrow fissure which separated
him from his
arm
and gaping
chasthy after Murfreesboro' into the wide
Ci.icamanga. 'which now divides them after
There is little dirneultY in
terioration of the Western
tracing the gradual de
l
C
be-
tween the two great battles 3.0 Confederate army
not that Generals Polk, c neetsnt
rn, Breckenridge;
mentioned. It is
Cleburne, and others, who have always
to this army, are one whit less valiant and been attached
patriotic,
or have lost a particle of their men s confide e e ; but
it is th it the harmony, hoiaogorleity, and
enterprise
of the aggregate force have been constantly onth
e
decline, by reason of their growing dissatisfaction

with General Bragg. The army of General Lee in
Virginia has been constantly fighting, and the

reciprocal confidence of the men and thecommand-
ing general in each other has never ceased to grow,
In the Western Army just the reverse has been the

case. They have hardly fought at 4. , and, in con-
sequence of their inaction and the frothy mendacity

of the Western Federal journals, the Confederate
morale has declined, and the reputation of General

Rosencranz and of the men whom he leads has

gone up in proportion. You hear Western men
talking complacently of the manifest necessity of
30,000 Confederates retiring without fighting when
they found thenielves confronted by 50,000 Fede-
rals, forgetful apparently that General Lee has
fought such battles as Sharpsburg and Chancel-
lorsville, in the former of which 35,000 Confede-
rates fought evenly against (by M.Clellan's own
confession) 105,000 Federals, and in the latter
43,000 Confederates fought and utterly worsted an
army variously estimated at from 120,000 to 150,000
Federals. In consequence of the extravagant and
formidable reputation of Rosecranz, General Bragg
seems, when at last he ventured upon a battle, to
have had no other hope than either to crush a see•
tion of the Federal army in detail, or to fight with-
out
m a beingmade
e such
ue
h worsted
dfiosupgos
i;
fought without
dispositions
s ea consequently, uwe
on
uut
ll yde
n. ,
enable the
i battle Chica-
r e g
hg ;
s m t o
having-
o f i
low
mauga was
h
victoryshould
w surely hichevery general who ini-
tiates believe that he is about
to gain.have Dozens of excuses been put forward
u pa
the
ba t t l e
in extenuation of Gen. Br , •
agg s failure to piofic on
the night of Sunday, the 20th, or on the morning of
Monday, the 21st Sept,, by
the enormous victory
which Gen. Longstreet had given him. To my mind,
these excuses only serve to render more incontro-
vertible the fact that such an opportunity as has
only occurred twice in the war was lamentably and
inexcusably flung away. On behalf of Gen. Bragg
it is said, " Our supplies were at Dalton ; the men
could not advance without food." The manifest an-

ewer is, "In that case, why did Gen. Bragg force
on a battle ?" Another excuse is, "Our men were so
_ _

wearied by incessant marching, from the morning

of the 14th to the night of the 20th, that they could

not pursue." The ready response is given that the

- -
whole of M'Laws's division was up on Monday

morning, of which only a portion had previously
been engaged ; that Jenkins's fine brigade, over 3,000
strong, came:up that day fresh and full of fight ; that
all the divisions of Longstreet and Buckner,who had
been fiercely engaged on Sunday, were electrified
and aghast to find that they were robbed of the

'ruitsor their grand Sunday's victory by the inac-
:ion of Monday. Anether excuse is urged, though

hardly by General Bragg himself, to the effect that
he did not know on Sunday night that a victory
had been gained. It is certain that other Confede-

rate generals knew it, and had they acted on their
own responsibility and forgotten the existence of
Gen. Bragg, the Federal army would not new be
lying within its lines at Chattanooga. Other excuses,

which have been plentifully advanced, to the effect
that it was necessary to stop and collect ehe scattered
small arms and artillery, and to bury the dead—

some of whom have not been buried to this hour—

are too puerile to be worthy of a moment's conside

ration.

The conclusion is irresistible that Genera

Bragg failed to convert the most headlong and dis
ordered rout which the Federals have ever seen
since Bull Run into a crowning victory like Water-
loo. I have endeavoured, by using only the simplest
and baldest phraseology, to avoid even the sem-
blance of exaggeration which might attach to
warmer and more coloured expressions.
That the rout was all, and more than all, that I
have stated becomes more and more apparent as you
ride over the ground and hear the tales of the
country folk who witnessed it. One old man, who
lives in a shanty close to the final stand made by the
Federals on the edge of Missionary Ridge, found 15
Federal soldiers cowering in his garden, and upon
his telling them that the Confederates were be-
tween them arid their haven, Chattanooga, they
etacked arms and declared themselves his prisoners.
He went out to search for some Confederates, and
upon his return in an hour or more with some of
Wheeler's cavalry, he found the Federals still there
awaiting their captors. Everybody who lives along
the main road which connects Chattanooga with
Lafayette echoes the same story of the panic, con-
fusion, and terror of the Federal flight. The same
phrases were everywhere on the white lips of the
fugitives—a hurried entreaty for water, and an
eager inquiry as to the road and distance from
Chattanooga. One enthusiastic Southern matron
expressed her conviction that if the women who live
by the roadside had followed closely on the heels of
the Yankees upon Sunday night with loud and
shrill screams, the town of Chattanooga would have
been found evacuated on Monday morning. The
very correspondents of Northern journals testify to
the utter demoralisation of the army, and one of
them—the correspondent of the Cincinnati Coin.
nzercial—openly compares the rout to Bull Run.
let General Bragg lingered and hesitated at a
moment when, as cannot but be apparent to every
reasonable man, there was for the first time during
this war a chance of terminating it finally and for
ever at one blow. It the Federals had once been
driven out of Chattanooga, who can doubt that, out
of Rosencrenz's army of about 70,000 men, not more
than one-fourth would ever have reached Nashville?
Oppressed with many such thoughts as to the
immense opportunity thrown away, I rode over the
field of battle. It is less interesting, by reason of
its enormous area and the dense and tangled forest
in which it was fought, than other similar sceens
I have witnessed. And yet, as it seems to me, there
is not one reasonable and sober Northerner, how-
ever rabid a Unionist he may be, who could witness
the arena upon which one of these bloody debates
nas been conducted, and fail from that moment to
abandon all hope that the Federal soldiers will,
whatever may be their numbers, ever vanquish their
opponents on the field of battle. Take your stand
upon the ground occupied by the Federals, and face
in the direction towards which they 'faced—you
will see every limb and trunk of the trees in your
front pitted with bullets, like the marks of small-
pox on a man's face. It is evident that a perfect
tornado of iron hail must have rent these primaeval
forests, and were it not that the majority of the
bullet-marks are at a height of 6ft. or more from
the ground, it would seem incomprehensible that
any human being could have lived and moved for
five minutes, if exposed to the pitiless pelting of
such a deadly storm. Proceed next to take your
stand as it were in the Confederate ranks. A few
spare bullet holes, most of them excellently aimed,
tell of, comparatively speaking, a handful of troops,
firing little, but advancing rapidly with fearful
howls and yells through the woods, and striving to
bring the debate to the bloody arbitration of the
bayonet, to which their opponents are never willing
to wait and submit it. It would be impossible for
Mr' Sumner or Mr. Seward himself to contemplate
One of these scenes and to dispute the enormously
erners
courage and ferocity with which the South-
superior
Cbickamaea,Other sights, visible on the field of
fought, are
of :no month after the battle was
character with which I have been
during the last twelve
will not admit 0
descriptionb to your readers.
They may be conceivedof
Corinth,,,y which exhibit Alp the reader of the famous
lines in the " Siege
shuddering at a sight whieh
on ;and it was
can never be realised
save by one who has looked
with regret and horror that
I b: ved two or
Federals till
three hundred bodies of
beasts
ofthe field
unburied,
t affordingod
to
the
et outitheleearQueosstt
of bi revoltingrd sof
the air an oppor-
tunity for such a banquet as I little expected ever
to witness.
The most noticeable incident that has occurred
since the date of my last letter has been the bot,•
meet weather by which we have been visited. It
will be remembered by some of your readers that
when the battle of Chicamauga was fought the whole
of the States which line the Mississippi River bad
been exposed to an almost unexampled drought of
two or three months' duration. With the Ist of
October came the mach desired rain, and already
we are beginning to long again for the choking dust
in preference to the muddy adhesive piste which
makes camp life so distasteful. I have seldom seen
in any climate a more fearful night than that of the
14th of October. The rain, which hid scarcely
ceeeed for three days or nights, descended as though