The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-13 00:00:00

THE: CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(Fr( or t the Special Correspondent of the Tones.)
NEW YORK, Oct. 30.
Utah :,.ss the bungling, blundering, eccentricities of
Amer lean strategists for the hundredth time disap-
point, the world, we are, indeed, on the eve of some
gree.t feat of arms in East Tennessee. Gen. Grant,
in command of all the forces stationed in Tennessee,
eritucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and part
of West Virginia and North Carolina, is bringing
up as many men as he can muster from distances of
200 and even SiJO miles to the rescue of Thomas's
army, hemmer'a in and almost beleagured by Bragg's
Southerners at Chattanooga. On the other side,
Gen. Lee, having put a spoke in the wheel of the
Federal ,'army of the Potomac by the destruction of
the Alexandria and Orange Railway, is believed to
have sent a large division of his troops against
Burnside on the borders of West Virginia, while it
is stated a portion of Bragg's army threatens the
rear of the same Burnside on the Tennessee side.
The latest tidings of the Northerners at Chattanooga
were rather disheartening, for their communications
were cut off in most directions, and provision 3 could
only reach them by a tedious march over a long
and wretched mountain road, rendered almost im-
passable by recent heavy rains. Lately, however,
if we can give credit to a despatch of the 27th,
which reached the Cincinnati Gazette on the 29th,
a nu w communication has been thrown open for the
benefit of the Federals between Chattanooga and
Bridgeport, a place down the Tennessee river, about
3) miles below the Federal headquarters, and this
was effected by a sudden attack of the Federals, who
succeeded, not only in clearing theoleft bank of the
presence of the Southerners, but also in driving
them from their commanding position on Lookout
Mountain. We have, up to this time, no other
account of this combat, which is said to have cost
Vote Federals only five killed and fifteen wounded,
than the somewhat meagre telegram in the Cincin•
vati Gazette, which, in some unaccountable manner,
has in this instance, stolen a march upon the all-
monopolising Washington official press.
The Army of the Potomac, under Meade, enjoys
a happy holiday. Some changes in the position of
his forces are said to have taken place, with a view
to protect the men engaged in the repairs of the
damaged railway. The work of construction is
pushed on with great eagerness and 15 e,7
nearly up to Warrenton Junction, are reported as
ready for use. General Gilmore seems to have
started up from his prolonged nap at Charleston,
and, as if to rouse all other sleepers in the neigh-
bourhood, has been, on the 26th, ficing away from
Batteries Gregg and Wagner against Forts Sumter
and Johnson. It was, ,however, mere noise, and no
hurt. One hundred shots were thrown from Morris
Island and 160 from two Monitors which took part
in the noisy fireworks. Fort Moultrie thundered
in return from the besieged side. It is reported that
Gilmore is making ready for a bombardment of the
city of Charleston in dread earnest.
The New York State election for which the 3d
day of N vember is appointed seems likely to turn
out rather a tame affairt It is not about the choice
Or a new Governor, nor about the return of new
members to their Legislature, that parties are now
astir, as you are undoubtedly well aware ; they are
EinaPty contending about the refilling of some magis-
ter:Lai offices and naming a few second rate function-
aaies, a matter rather of personal than of great
general interest. Every trifle is welcome, however,
which offers the least opportunity for a fight. The
Democrats, borne down by the results of the late
struggles in Pennsylvania and Ohio, are further
weakened by internal dissensions ; and it is very
doubtful whether all the eloquence of Governor
Seymour, who is expected to address a grand meet-
ing at the Cooper Institute to-morrow evening, will
have power to give weight and consistency to the
Conservative vote. By his indecision and faintheart-
edness during the riots of last July Mr. Seymour
threw away a golden opportunity which will never
offer itself again. Moreover he is, or professes him-
self to be, a 'Unionist, or partisan of the war, " to
the utter subjugation of the Sonth." Nov a freak
of fortune, some great calamity in East Tennessee,
or some terrific panic in Wall-street, may perhaps
open the weiy for the triumph of the peace-at-all-
price men of the Fernando Wood and Vallandigham
school; but the views to which Governor Seymour
is wedded are already represented in the Cabinet,
and are even supposed to be entertained by the head
its alt of the executive power, and are consequently
ht. 'no weight as au instrument of opposition. Paced
at, the top of that see-saw iu which the Blair-Seward
-party are striving to outhalance, Mr. Chase, and all
the burden of his million greenbacks, President
Lincoln shifts and shuffles with a dexterity little cal-
culated to confirm the titles of "idiot" and "half-
witted fellow" with which some journals salute him.
Lately he has deemed it good policy to exhibit some
leaning towards the Blair faction.
These Blairs are a mighty family. They have at
their head still living, and from his retirement, still
swaying their councils, that Francis P. Blair, sen.,
the right-hand man of Gen. Jackson, "whose tren-
chant battle-axe hewed down all impediments that
stood in old Hickory's way," and who carried the
election of that little Dutchman Van Buren, whose
glory was limited to "treading in the footsteps of his
illustrious predecessor." The Blairs have only one of
their name in the Ministry, Mr. Postmaster-General
Montgomery Blair, but without the walls they reckon
-Francis P. Blair, sen., warrior and statesman, in
himself a host, a man gifted, it is said, with all the
accomplishments of an Admirable Crichton, stirred
jesava ambition fully commensurate with his abili-
ties, was said to aspire to Presidential honours,
puotsi7oha o°,ltikahis father, probably considers the
Ring-maker f ir more enviable than that
of a Ran
set atilt%) tt!l a who, like his father and the whole
is
all the ins anti
'" conversant with all the machinery,
juts. all the highways and byways,
all the pipes, wires, pulleys, and trapdoors, and all
the strategy and tactics, jell
of every political party in
the+ country, tax e\ cry candidate, from
the uprising of
014 7t
Abe.' " These Blairs, Frank to the advent of ' Old
raak and Montgomery, we
are told, are causing
the Administration a vast deal
Tribune of trouble. The Chicago says their course
completely identifies them
With the Copperheads ;
and 'the St. Louis Democrat, a
paper
as black as
the ace of spades," says that they have "
g
bob, and sinker, over to the Cepperohneeatd`s`
is, however, that the Blairs
may have of pefrstohnal
'apart from anye
real fact
of peace on
With the
scheme they
men, aggrandizement,e
are peace
any teems thatbe promotersefound ecacna.4-a:rteeen.t
mayU ion ; and they
restoration of the
Union
Chase and the Rinir far at
drawn ',Knives with
hear of peace and of the Union
as
these latter will only'
the total andfinal abolitionl°n
itself conditionally uponupon
giant, as I said, by his answer
Tao Presia.
of slavery.
and by his abandonment.r
to the Missouri Deputation,
of
at least for the pre-
of the measure of the draught,inced a wish to snub
sent, is thought to have ay
and to let the
the 100 zealous Republicans,
the Conserva-
sun of his countenance shine upon
lation, signed by
fives. There are letters in circu
.
ds in Illinois,
some of Mr. Lincoln's intimate friennd
has
been for
asserting that " the President is, a
a long time, in favour of peace ;" and hints are even
thrown out in some eccentric papers that he is
sending out trusty messengers, in the guise of ped-
lars, hes,
scouts, and deserters, to see how the landsen t
and acquaint him with any chance that may pre
itself for negotiation, whether it be with the rebel
chiefs, or with any party among the Southern people
which might chow any disposition to come to terms.
Without attaching the slighest shape of import-
ance to this idle gossip, I think it is just possible
that it may suit the President's present mood to
humour the Blairs, and that peacefully inclined sec-
tion in his Cabinet and among the public at large
which, rejecting the' lymphatic" Mr. Seward as a
candidate, show a disposition to place him, Mr.
Lincoln himself, at the head of the ticket for the
next general election. "Secretary Seward and the
Blairs," it is already freely blurted out, " have dis-
covered that the Republican candidate for the suc-
cession stands six feet three in his stockings, and
that his name, is Honest old Abe.' "
a part o
S ) great f the future destinies of this
country depends on the vicissitudes of the war, and
it seems so probable, in despite of the ungenerous
efforts of the War-effice to nip all military vegeta_
tion in the bud—that ewe euccescful comm4uder

may secure in his favour the suffrage of the multi-
tude, and be borne on the shields of his followers
to the seat successively occupied by the Jacksons
and Taylors, heroes of former wars, that the
squabbles of these Cabinet schemes would seem
to be, to say the least, strangely premature.
Their divisions, however, have their own uses,
inasmuch as they draw more distinctly the

lines between the political parties, among which
they seek their support, and may eventually enable
one of them so to fix the principles of the Govern-
ment as to place it on as intelligible and consistent
line of policy. The Blair party, the Conservatives,
the Union peace men, are strong in numbers at the
present time, and would be further strengthened a
few months hence if the snowy curtain of winter
were to fall upon the bloody drama of the war be-
fore any great episode came to relieve its dreary
sameness ; or if, in the event of a failure of the pre-
sent Enlistment Act, the desperate measure of the
draught were again to be resorted to. National
union is at the top of the thoughts of nine Ameri-
cans out of ten, but speedy peace would also be
popular with the worn out multitude. If those two
blessings were to be combined together there cer-
tainly would be immense rejoicing about the re-
covery of the strayed Southern sheep and the negro
would be the fatted calf immolated to supply the
reconciliation feast. Only " how do the Democrats
propose to bring about so happy
work ? There is somethin
pfolarn they
us
n;
ionwditohnotht how
etelslouusth,
a consummation ?"
people inquire.
" How do they intend to go to
g vague, utopian in their
they could negotiate
so stubbornly bent on
separation ; they do not acquaint us with the ad-
vances to be made, or the terms which might prove
acceptable, to an enemy who gives no sign of laying,
down his arms; and they do not reassure us as to
their power of guaranteeing us against the reproduc-
tion of effects of which they do not propose to re-
move the causes. To save both Union and slavery
is a very arduous task for the present, and it entails
endless difficulties, complications, and new perils
for the futuie."
On the other hand the programme of the Repub-
licans, and of the arrant Radicals among them, is
extremely simple and easy. They purpose to carry
on the war till they have emancipated the last black
by the annihilation of the last white. There is
something monstrous and atrocious in their views;
but the scheme is not only feasible—it is what is
already half done, what is being done day by
day. General Butler, the man who goes in

New Orleans by the name of "Beast Butler,"
made himself the mouthpiece of this per-
fectly consistent and intelligible, though ruthless,
set of politicians. At a meeting of the Union State
League of Massachusetts, held in Boston on Tues-
day, the General " took ground with those who be-

lieve the seceded States have annihilated themselves
as States, while the power of the general Govern-
ment still remains intact over their territory. He
combated the position of a member of the Cabinet
(Postmaster Blair), that ' the rebel commonwealths,
by throwing down their arms, should be received
into the Union with unimpaired rights, and with
their old local institutions.' . . If the Confede-
rate States were readmitted, and their representa-
tives took their seats in Congress, before some radi-
cal change were effected, what guarantee would
there be that the Federal National Debt would not
be repudiated, or made to stand upon the alternative
that the Confederate debt must likewise be paid ?
The rebel States must be regarded as de-
stroyed, . •
or it would be almost impossible to choose
another President, for the reason that no candidate
likely to be selected would receive such a support in
the North as to give him a majority of the whole
electoral college, constituted of all the States, both
loyal and rebel."
You may perceive by this that the ruin of the
South is decreed upon principles of mere reason of
State, with which the everlasting negro has but
little to do. The North has, by Mr. Lincoln's elec-
tion, reconquered a supremacy in the Union which
had slipped from its hands for nearly a quarter of a
century. It is necessary that the South should
cease to be, or Northern ascendancy would be im-
perilled by the tacitly acknowledged fact that the
unanimous South would always have it in its power
to turn the scales in favour of any of the parties
into which the North is hopelessly divided, and
with which the South might choose to ally itself.
While one orator in Boston appeals to the selfish
interests of a coldblooded policy, another in New
York strives to stir up the passions of a blind multi-
tude. Governor Yates, of Illinois, at a large assem-
blage in the Cooper Institute last evening, indulged
in that strong style of invective which has become
so common in this country. " It," he said, "in
setting aside your Constitution, if in rebelling against
your Government, your pet institution, slavery, dies,
I say let it die and be damned for ever." And again
—" The traitor has only two rights. He has a right
to be hung in this world, and a Divine right to be
damned for ever in the next.'' Mr. Yates is a pro-
found admirer of the President, but wile " inclined
to find fault with him because he was " slow," did
not call out a million of men, and did not put forth
his edicts of confiscatioe, emancipation, conscription,
Sec. He found out, however, after all, that Mr.
Lincoln " could not move faster than Providence
and God." And when he sent his flaming despatches
to the President—" Issue your proclamation of con-
fiscation, and call out a million of men"—" old Abe"
telegraphed back to him, "Dick, hold still, and see
the salvation of God." (Tremendous cheering.)
Another orator, the Hon. Lewis Barker, said,
" We have a missionary spirit in New England. We
send Bibles and money and tracts and men for the
conversion of the heathen abroad, and we have a
home missionary spirit sometimes, and when we
fail to convert with the Word, we send bombshells
and bullets and bayonets, and we prove our prin.
ciples orthodox by Apostolic blows. (Laughter.)
We propose to convert and bring back our mis-
guided brethren into the Union, if we have to do it
in the way the Methodist missionary made a convert
of the blacksmith on the Blue Ridge—he pulled off
his coat, and mauled the grace of God into his unbe-
lieving soul?
It is to this odd mixture of unreason, profanity,
and utter blasphemy that this church-going, Bible-
reading people are becoming accustomed, as they
frequent the school of their rabid stump orators.
The multitude follows these rhapsodies but too
eagerly. The notion that the Union is to be re-
established by the utter ruin, disfranchisement, and
degradation of the "rebel" States gains ground
daily, and the only plausible solution of the great
national question seems to be that which extreme
Radicals recommend. No one can have lived any
time in this country without being aware of the
immense ground lately gained among all classes
of men by the views of the out-and-out Abolitionists.
They have no faith in the practicability, and less in
the durability, of peace on other terms ; and were
ie, possible to stem the mighty tide, and bring the
1::te. back to milder views, any compromise
a came too late to undo the work of destruc-
tion vi4jell, as I said, is going on at so tremendous
a rate.

The news fro October 31.
i
ntelligible by
tnab.Chattanooga has been made more 1
that on the 27th General
morning's despatches. It seems
lug by force of
urn:it:era' Smith succeeded in open-
ing
between Chattanooga and
and water communica-
tion
Chattanooga on th°ga and Bridgeport, a place
Tennessee River. By
this movement the position
the Confederates on
the Look-out Mountain was of
0 atize2doerals
t, endangered, and ou the
28th it was abandoned to
without any
attempt at resistance.
by 29th, at midnight,
General Hooker was attacked
bet,eeettoutherners
at Brown's Ferry, on the river,
conduct lasted
repulsed
hri.d
and Chattanooga, and, it is said, c, geport
ants in grand style." The fight by moonlightla assail..
till 4 o'clock in the Morning.
Northern troops is reported as " splendid:, t
The
the
result is the opening of an easy communication for
the Feuer: is both by railway and waggon roads
and by the river, relieving- them from the worst
anxieties of their somewhat distressing position. it
is remarkable, indeed, that the Secessionists should
have given up Look-out Mountain without firing a
shot in its defence ; but it is presumable that Bragg
had been compelled to weaken himself on this side
in order to have it in his power to detach a large
division of his forces against Burnside. The posi-
tion of the latter Geneial, between a part of Lee's
corps and a portion of Bragg's troops, is well cal-