The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-06 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the limes' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, June 23.

It seems to be proved, from the impossibility of
his being anywnerc else, that (3en. Lao, at the head
of a formidable army, is in the Valley of the Shenan-
doah. Where Gen. Hooker is the Government will
not allow the public to learn, except in the vague
manner conveyed in the assertion that -Washington
is safe by the disposition ho has made of his forces.
As the Government has reason to fear that Lee has
at least 100,000 men, in addition to Ewell's and
Stuart's cavalry of 20,000, and as it knows by offi-
cial documents in the possession of the War D -
partment that Hooker has not more than 70,000, it
is naturally anxious, if not alarmed, for the result
of the great encounter, which cannot now be long
delayed, but of which Lee, and not Hooker, has the
choice, both of ground and of time. Hooker's main
object is to save Washington, hat as he does not:
know whether Lee's immediate object is to attack
this city or to mov.3 upon Wheeling and Pittehurg
on the one side, or Harrisburg and Philadelphia on
the other, prepare tory to his grand blow at Balti-
more, and finally upon Washington, his chief duty
is incessant watchfulness and the holding of his
army well together, so that it may not be beaten in
detail. Dreading, apparently, that the Northern
pub:ic has not sufficient strength of mind to bear
bad news without dangerous febrile excitement,
Hooker has ordered "that nothing shall be said by
correspondents in the front until the grand battle
comes off," and the Government has aided him in
his object of secrecy by renewed activity of sup-
pression at the telegraphic offices of Washington,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York of all facts,
rumours, and surmises that may be thought too
strong for the nerves of the nation to bear without
ill consequences. It is even understood that Mr.
Stanton has ordered the prosecution of a
Philadelphia newspaper which indicated with
too much truth the position of General
Hooker's army at the end of last week, and
of all the other newspapers throughout the country
that copied the dangerous paragraph. The chief
result of this excess of alarm and secrecy is that the
North is filled with all imaginable rumours, except
rumours of victory for the Army of the Potomac.
The public is in the mood to take the gloomiest pos-
sible view of matters. The success of Hooker does
not enter even into its dreams; and it the "grand
battle" on which he calculates for removing the veil
that conceals his present movements and intention
shall end in his signal defeat, no one, however
grieved and distressed he may be, will be in the
slightest degree surprised. One of the most pro-
minent facts of the day is the popular disbelief in
General Hooker's ability to command an army.
Another fact almost equally prominent is the almost
universal conviction of the returned soldiers, of the
fighting element of the population which has not
yet taken part in the war, and of the great mass of
the non-Abolitionist people, that of General M'Clel-
lan were in Hooker's place Washington and Balti-
more would be in less danger than they are; and
General Lee not half so confident as he is known to
be of a speedy and a splendid victory, But if, in
obedience to the popular demand which has already
arisen for his restoration, the President were to re-
appoint General M'Clellan there would be a divi-
sion in the Cabinet, which would deprive Mr. Lin-
coln of the services of Mr. Chase, Mr. Stanton, and
General Halleok. As he prefers the unity of his
Cabinet to any General whatever, as, moreover, he
has confidence in the fighting qualities and sound
judgment of Hooker, as he has pledged his word to
give him another trial, and as, in the last place,
General M'Clellan would resume power as a master,
if he resumed it at ell, the President turns a deaf
ear to every remonstrance on behalf of the popular
favoxirite, and thinks Hooker the very best "peg"
for the very large " hole" into which it is his fortune
or misfortune to have been thrust.

With the exception of the cavalry raids which have
so sadly scared the people and Government of Penn-
sylvania, and a few cavalry skirmishes at the gaps of
the Bull Run mountains between the outposts of the
rival armies, the main event of the new aggression of
the Confederates has been the humiliating defeat of
Milroy at Winchester—the key of the Shenandoah
Valley, and a position which it was of the utmost
importance to the Federals to hold. Gen. Milroy,
ono of the political adventurers of the school of
Butler, Schenck, and Hascall, who have left the desk
for the camp, for their own advancement and the
shame of their country, is the same redoubtable
warrior who threatened the "Copperheads" and
peace party that as soon as the war was over the
soldiers, " having their hands in," would turn their
attention to the suppression of disloyalty in the
North and West, and who otherwise rendered him-
self notorious by armed hostilities against newspaper
offices that were unable to resist. Like the rest of
his class, he has shown himself much better at blus-
tering than at fighting. Appointed to command for
political, not for military, reasons, at a moment
when the President was out of temper with the slow
and cautious movements of all the officers who had
received a military education at West Point, and
chiefly because he was not one of them, Gen. Mil-
roy was stationed at Winchester several weeks ago,
when the threat of an advance of the Confederates
up the Shenandoah Valley was openly discussed.
For such an advance it was his duty to have been
prepared, and at Winchester and the neighbouring
posts he had 15,000 under his orders. No sooner
did two divisions of the Confederates, under Gen.
Ewell, appear in sight of Winchester than
he became alarmed, and beet his self-con-
trol and presence of mind. Instead of holding
out or offering the best resistance pcssible, until
Gen. Hooker should send or come to the rescue,
he made up what little of his mind was left to the
sad conclusion that he was outnumbered and "1-
generalled, and that nothing was to Le done but
to retreat as rapidly as he could. He retreated ac-
cordingly, and the telegrams of a few days after-
wards, despatched to the Government by himself,
informed the world that he had most gallantly and
desperately cat has way through a vastly superior
force, with the loss of only 2,000 men. It turns out,
however—for private letters from officers and sol-
diers will come to light, facts, however carefully sup-
pressed, will be made known, and truth will vindi-
cate itself, whoever may be hurt in the process—
that Gen. Maxey reached Harper's Ferry with
only 1,700 men out of 7,000; that he left behind
him all his artillery, ammunition, baggage, and
stores, estimated to be worth to the Confederates
nearly 5,000,000 dela ; and, moreover, that he ran a
great deal faster than any of his army, portions of
which 300 or 400 strong, continue up to the pre-
sent hour to present themselves at his new head-
quarters, wondering at the remarkable agility of
their commander, It is stated that the great rea-
son for the remarkable precipitancy of General
Milroy was his personal fear of capture at the
hands of t ho Confederate General, who, in conse-
quence of his (Milroy's) ultra-Abolitionism and his
running off and kidnapping negro slaves from the
farms of people whom he suspected of disloyalty,
had offered a reward of 10,000 dols for his head,,
with the intention of hanging him. It is scarcely
to be expected that the Democratic and Cop-
perhead press—which General Milroy was
in the habit of threatening with such awful ven-
geance when he was not in face of a more formid-
able enemy—will not animadvert with a severity
somewhat keener than usual upon this flagrant case
of incapacity or cowardice. Gen. Lee, in reporting
the capture of Winchester, announces" that God has
once more crowned the valour of our troops with
victory." The New York World takes exception
to the phrase, and thinks it ought to have been
stated that " God has once more crowned the folly
of Gen. Milroy with confusion ;" while the Herald,
less sarcastic and more appropriately in earnest, de-
clares that the public warfare demands that Milroy,
whose incompetency was well known to the War
Department, should be immediately arrested, tried
by court-martial, and shot, as an example for the
future; and that Mr. Stanton should, at the same
time, be removed from the Watecffice to make room
for an abler administrator.
As the Central Government, in a day of emer-
gency and peril, was not able to come to the relief
of Pennsylvania when threatened with fire and
"014, it is now urged that, considering the proved
incompetence and powerlessness of the Navy Be-

pe.rtment at Washington to prevent-the depreda-
tions of the Florida and Alabania and ;heir now
numerous consorts—one of which, the TL cony, or
Fiorida No. 2, captured the Liverpool em.g rant ship
the Isaac Webb, on her way to New Y k, and only
about 75 miles distant—Governor Sere. cur, of New
York, should take the matter in hand. Governor
Seymour has lately determined, without reference
to the President's forthcoming conscription, to re-
organise the New York State Militia to its full
complement of 120,000 men, a very respectable
army ; and it is argued, as he is Commander-in-
Chief of the naval as well as the military forces of
the commonwealth, that he ought in this capacity
to supplement the action of the weak Central Go-
vernment, and protect the citizens of the State of
New York at sea as well as on shore. Why, it is
asked, should he not call upon patriotic capitalists
to lend or fit out for him a squadron of fast
steamers to pursue the formidable war-ships of the
Southern Confederacy, and by capturing them free
the commerce of the city from frightful loss of ships
and geol,e as well as from enormous sea risks,
amounting to an insurance of 10 and 20, and in the
case of the Californian traders of 25 and even 30
per cent. ? The; are suggestive hints, presaging
the time—that may come, and that wilt come, in the
estimation of many who believe they can see much
further into futurity than their neighbours—when
the great State of New York will set up for herself
and try to recover the trade of the independent
South, by a new secession from Abolitionist New
England, Protectionist Pennsylvannia, and the agri-
cultural North-Wrest. At a very early period of
the strife, and before the assault upon Fort Sumter
had driven the Northern people beside themselves
with vindictive passion at the outrage upon their
flag, the erection of New York into a free city, after
the model of Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen, was
openly debated, and found many supporters.
Governor Seymour's action with respect to the
Militia, and the recommendation that he should
make himself forthwith a great naval as well as
military potentate, look as if the idea of separation
were not considered entirely illusory in the contin-
gency of Southern success; and that in the day of
the debacle New York, the Empire State, may per-
haps find it advisable to look to herself for the shap-
ing of her own destiny.

While General Banks, at Port Hudson, has been
endeavouring to prove to the world how bravely
negro soldiers will fight, and how obediently they
will suffer themselves to be slaughtered at the
command of their superior officer, Colonel Mont-
gomery, late of Kansas, has undertaken to prove
—what was not needed—that negroes when their
blood is inflamed, and their passion aroused by
bad example, will commit all the worst horrors
that ever disgraced the practice of war. Intend-
ing to excite the negro slaves of Georgia to in-
surrection against their masters, or at the very least
to run off as many thousands of them as he
could lay hands on for service in the Federal army,
Colonel Montgomery placed his black troops on
board of several transports on the 11th inst. and
sailed up the Altamaha river to the town of Darien.
All the inhabitants, including the slaves, fled at his
approach, and when he entered the place scarcely a
straggler was left. The correspondent of the _Herald
states, " that the town was burnt, which was some
consolation to the War Party ;" while the Savannah
News, not finding any consolation in the act, describes
it, on the authority of a correspondent whose whole
property perished in the conflagration, in terms that
will be anything but consoling to those numerous
good men among the Northern people who believe
that war has its decencies and humanities as well as
its duties, and who do not wish their cause to be
disgraced in the oyes of the civilised world by bar-
barous and needless atrocities, whether committed
by black men or by white. The negroes burnt the
churches, the chapels, the market-house, the bank,
the court-house, the gaol, and all the public and
private dwellings in the town, having previously
smeared the wooden houses with turpentine to in-
crease the rapidity of the conflagration, and rifled
the shops and stores of wine, spirits, clothing,
jewelry, and everything they needed. They even
went so far as to shoot the cattle in the streets in
wantonness and destruction, and did not retire until
nothing was left of Darien but a heap of smoulder-
ing ruins. "The Confederates," says the Express of
to-night, " heap coals of fire upon our heads by not
acting in a similar manner in Pennsylvania. In-
deed, they might relieve us from shame, if they
would only burn up a town or two, and thus take
the blushes off our cheeks." The Abolitionist jour-
nals say nothing on the subject, and one of them last
night, in narrating the brilliant deeds of Colonel
Montgomery, prudently omitted all mention of the
burning of Darien, contenting itself with the simple
announcement of the capture. It would be well for
their credit, however, if they would join their de-
nunciations to those of the rest of the people against
this diabolical mode of warfare, which not only con-
signs to infamy its leaders and instigators, but will
array against the Federal Administration an amount
of obloquy that no government can endure and live.
Another clergyman, and he by far the most dig-
nified and powerful in America, has declared himself
in favour of peace. Archbishop Hughes, who took
especial pains a few weeks ago to impress upon the
minds of a youthful auditory the fact that a small
republic, with liberty, was better than a large re-
public without it, has gone still further in the ex-
pression of those sober second thoughts on the war
which are fast recommending themselves to the in-
terest as well as to the conscience of the American
people. At the dedication on Sunday last of the
New Roman Catholic church of St. Theresa, in this
city, after a touching discourse on the purely reli-
gious aspects of the ceremonial in which he bore the
most conspicuous part, he touched in few but preg-
nant -aentenees on the awful question of the war.
" Speaking for the Roman Catholics, he would say
that they had no hand nor part in bringing about
the condition of affairs which now distracts and
afflicts theland."
. • •u Let us," he continued,
"pray to God to have mercy upon the .people of this
country, and by some means, devised in His great
wisdom, bring about an amicable termination of the
struggle. That was a legitimate prayer. As to that
there would, no doubt, be prayers upon both sides of
the line. Differences of opinion must exist with
regard to the accomplishment of it, but he was in
favour
even
oia happy termination of the present diffi-
culties, though it should be attended by the
division of
a great people." The Archbishop is a
cautious and prudent man, and on the few occasions
when he touches upon politics follows rather than
leads the sentiment of his people. The Irish Roman
Catholics have sent many thousands of their youth
to perish on the bloody, and as yet fruitless battle-
fields, where they have been more cruelly sacrificed
by therashness and stupidity of commanding officers
than by the sword of the enemy, relentless as that has
been ; and if any body of citizens have a right de-
rived from their efforts in the war to speak of
their desire for peace, it belongs to them and to the
Archbishop of their faith. The position taken by
the Archbishop, and in which he folloWs., most of
the Irish members a the Denaocr atic party to which
he belong's, and in which he will possibly lead the
remainder, isthe same assumed by Mr. Fernando
Wood—Peace, even at the cost of Disunion. A
large section—perhaps as
yet the majority of the
Democratic party, having its head-quarters in the
city of Albany, and not in New York, and known
as the Albany Regency—take less logical ground,
and loudly proclaim that they are in favour of peace,
but not at the expense of a division of the Union.
In this respect they are but in accord with Mr. Lin-
coln and Gen. Hooker, with Mr. Wendell Phillips
and Miss Ann Dickinson. with Gen. Butler and the
Rev. Mr. Beecher, and with the whole of the Re-
publican party, except the gentlemen who have
large war contracts, and cannot in a country such as
this, if they could in any other, be expected to allow
the Christian and the patriot that may be latent in
their nature to get the better of the trader and the
" smart" man of business. All these, from Mr. Lin-
coln down to Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, are men
of peace, but peace only to be acquired by the subju-
gation of the South. Archbishop Hughes, Mr. Fer-
nando Wood, and the working classes of New York
are peace men of another kind. They love peace for
its own sweet self. They are sick of the war and
alt that belongs to it. The poorer classes more espe-
cialiy suffer grievous ills from it, and expect to suf-
fer in a still higher degree, if it be not immediately