The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-25 00:00:00

THE HARVEST.

There is another element in the Confederate future so
full of hope and promise that it is my duty to notice it.
Many of your readers must now be aware that in a large
portion of the Confederate States the harvest last year was
unusually deficient, and consequently during the spring
months of the present year there was, as I mentioned at the
time, considerable anxiety about the supply of food. All
such anxiety has now disappeared in presence of the bounti•
ful and redundant harvest with which, during this current
year, the Confederate States have been blessed. I am
assured that the abundance of cereals is such that it would
supply the whole population for three years to come. Nor is
the abundance confined to cereals. The crop of vegetables is
such as would amaze any Englishman of the poorer classes.
Above all, the supply of potatoes (Irish potatoes, as they
are called here, to distinguish them from the sweet) will
be sufficient to admit of rations of that esculent being served
out next winter to the army in conjunction with meat
and flour. With gunpowder in excess of the utmost demands
of the next two or three years, with an abundance of food
such as defies the avarice of speculators, with armies in the
field which are by some believed to be numerically not
inferior to those of the Federals, and which at the lowest
estimate are, as compared with the Federal numbers, in the
ratio of three to four, with the old spirit and invincible re-
solution of Anglo-Saxon freemen struggling for indepen-
dence more than ever in the ascendant, who is there that
dares to talk of subjugation as a postaility ? Faint-hearted
men and women of course there are hero and there; how is
it possible that among 6,000,000 of Confederates such units
should fail to be found ? But if the Federals persuade them-
selves, because a few deserters recommend themselves to
their new masters by spreading tales of Confederate disaf-
fection, that the heart of the South is *hanged or unstable,
they will End before the year is out that they are reckoning
without their host, and that sooner or later President
Davis's words will find realisation, in which he asserted
with not unbecoming pride that " these Confederate States
have demonstrated that no superiority of numbers or avail-
able resources can overcome the resistance offnred by such
valour in combat, such constancy under suffering, and such
cheerful endurance of privation, as have been conspicuously
displayed by this people in the defence of their rights and
liberties."
THE FORTY DAYS SIEGE OF CHARLESTON.

The record of the 40 days of siege which Charleston has
undergone since the Federals first effected a lodgment upon
Morris Island is certainly not such as to be discouraging to
the Confederates. It would be idle to deny that consider-
able disappointment has been felt in high quarters here in
regard to the surprise and capture of the Confederate works
at the foot of Morris Island. Tho prevailing impression
seems to be that a more vigilant supervision of Folly
Island should have been maintained by the Confederates on
Morris Island ; that the timber on Folly Island should have
been cut down, and the erection of masked batteries by the
Federals, under cover of which they surprised and took the
Confederate work at the southern end of Morris Island,
should thus have been rendered impossible. With
the southern half of Morris Island in possession the Fede-
rals had no difficulty in there establishing the batteries of
200-pounder and 300-pounder Parrott guns, which have
since done such damage to Fort Sumter, against which up
to the 26th inst. they had launched upwards of 7,000 shots.
But pari vassu with the vigour of the assault has grown the
energy of the resistance. Specially has this been the case
since General (Miner, once the head of the department of
Military Engineers in Richmond, but now promoted to a
Major-Generalship and detailed for special service at
Charleston, has taken his place by the side of that other ac-
complished engineer, General Beauregard. There is every
reason to think that the great Chancery snit of Gillmer v.
Gilmore, now awaiting solution on the islands around
Charleston Harbour, and likely, according to all appear-
ances, to rival in tediousness the case of Jarndyce v. Jarn-
dyce, will elevate the present siege of Charleston to high
rank among the great sieges of history. The first great
lesson which has been taught hitherto is furnished by
Battery Wagner, which, as it seems, has solved the great
problem, how best to resist the tremendous projectiles of
modern science. Into the banks of sand which Battery
Wagner offers in resistance, all the projectiles of the Fede-
rals have hitherto been fired in vain. The endeavours to
carry the work by assault, conducted by mixed bodies of
white and black Federal soldiers, have hitherto been re-
pulsed with heavy loss. It is my impression that when
the equinoctial gales prevail, and the monitors are driven off
the coast and prevented from enfilading the position now
held by the Federals, General Gilmore will be likely to find
himself more interfered with than has hitherto been the
case. But anyhow the difficulties of reducing Charleston
would but commence with the capture of Morris Island and
the fall of Fort Sumter. Your readers must not imagine that
I have any reason to apprehend that either Fort Sumter
or Battery Wagner is, as some people imagine, already
doomed, Great as has been the damage inflicted upon Fort
Sumter by the colossal missiles of the Federals, it is under-
stood that General Gillmer does not despair of building, out
of the ruins of the fort, assisted by any amount of sandbags,
a new work from which his future resistance can be main-
tained. A few days ago an appeal was addressed to the
ladies of Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, and
in a few hours several hundred sandbags were forwarded to
Charleston and conveyed to Fort Sumter, where they were
filled and turned to account. Such is the spirit which ani•
mates the resistance of a haughty and dominate race, ex-
asperated to fever heat by what they regard as the fiendish
attempt of their adversaries wantonly to set in flames their
beloved city of Charleston, by throwing incendiary shells
into its midst, and scattering midnight terror among de-
fenceless women and children.

The second month of the eicge of Charleston,as conducted
by the Monitors and from Morris Island, draws to a close.
Fort Sumter is in ruins, but those ruins are stronger than
the fort in its integrity. "Le Roi cst more. Vrve le Rol".
Furious bombardments of Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and
Battery Wagner, protracted through several whole nights,
have done trifling injury to the occupants of those works,
while there is abundant evidence that the energy and hope-
fulness of the assailants are on the decrease. If anything
were wanted to stimulate the desperation of the resistance,
it would be found in the announcement that when General
Gilmore and Admiral Dahlgren have done their work the
turn of General Benjamin Butler will come. It is un-
necessary to state that, if the work of General Gilmore and
Admiral Dahlgren could ever be successfully accomplished,
there would be nothing left for General Butler to do, unless
he elects to perish upon the ruins of Charleston and to sow
its site with salt. It is not believed that, with President
Davis's proclamation (denouncing General Butler as a felon
and murderer, and condemning him, if taken, to death)
still unrepealed, he would be apt to venture far
from the seacoast. But the indications are that Gene-
ml Gilmore and Admiral Dahlgren have still plenty of
work to do, In my last letter I stated that it was believed
that heavy Parrott guns could not be fired repeatedly at a
high elevation without rapidly wearing out. Already it is
apparent that the siege, as hitherto conducted by the Fede-
rals, will exact the ceaseless substitution of new 200-
pounder and 300-pounder Parrott guns, and the supply of
such guns cannot but be limited. For the last 10 or 12
days no mere shells have been thrown into the town ; one
explanation of this fact being that a 200 •pounder Parrott
gun, from which the incendiary shells were thrown, had
burst close to the muzzle. Alogether, as I write, the feel-
ing here with regard to the ability of the Confederates to
hold Charleston is one of cheerfulness and confidence. The
long delay hae given the defenders opportunities of develop-
ing to the utmost their available resources, and the engi-
neering genius of Generals Beauregard and Gillmer is find-
ing full scope. One of the immense Blakely guns, lately
imported from England, is already in position, and every
one is holding his breath to catch the echo of its first report.
Movements are promised, whenever the equinoctial gales
shall
exerciseave driv
aen the Monitors under shelter, which will
powerful influence upon the siege. It is
a curious commentary upon the inhumanity of the act of
which the Federals, in attempting to bombard Charleston,
have been guilty, to read Mr. Cobden's diatribe launched
against the Turks, in a recent debate in the House of Com-
a
Com-
mons. Mr. Cobden is reported to have said :—" It appears
that a Turkish
it P
into sha
h ,
ishaving
head,
in
momentman of
of
a
panic, in
Belgrade, took
to
bombard that city. It was an outrage repudiated, of course,
by
eccn,body—an outrage that would not be tolerated even
in war ; because we all know that a great warrior, Ihe Duke
of Wellington, laid it down as a rule that you would not
be justifixi in bombarding a city even to carry out a strate-
roafugyhouour tentehtneyC."onfederacy on
intense as
hg iacsa lbme
eonv et
hmee
the subject of the wanton shelling of Charleston by the
inntd izinnatthioenfacthe
Federals, the act itself has excited no surprise. What
should excite surprise would be T.to learn that an outrage
which is "repudiated by everybody': had, when perpe-

trated by the Federals, elicited from Mr, Cobden the same
public reprehension which he has justly lavished upon a
tot dissimilar enormity perpetrated elsewhere.

EAST TENNESSEE.

The menacing 'attitude of the four antagonistic armies
which occupy East Tennessee—the Switzerland, as it is
called, of the Confederacy—is still maintained, and nothing
more is known than that General Buckner has withdrawn
his forces westward, and occupied a position nearer to
General Bragg, whereby he has left Knoxville open to the
Federals. Whether the Federals have availed themselves
of the opening thus offered to them at Knoxville I am not
in a position positively to state, but the impression here is
that such a movement would not be to their advantage.
The difficulties of General Rosecrans, operating as he now
is at a distance of 100 miles from his base, and in mountains
which greatly resemble the Jura range, must necessarily be
excessive. With the eyes of the Confederacy steadfastly
fixed, as they are at this moment upon Eastern Tennessee,
it is not believed there is danger in that quarter, Vague
threats of danger to Mobile from a portion of General
Grant's army are heard at intervals ; but Mobile can cer-
tainly, if justice is done to it, take care of itself. Mean -
while, along the Mississippi, upon both banks, active em-
ployment for General Grant will not be wanting. Rumours
of considerable activity on the part of General Price in
Arkansas, of the organisation of endless guerilla light bat-
teries on both sides of the great river, of revived hopefulness
in the State of Mississippi, of an unabated spirit of resist-
ance in every corner of the south-west, might welt shake
the confidence of a mightier power than is wielded by the
Federals, if reason or judgment had any influence upon
their counsels. Nor, putting aside the stubborn resistance
of Charleston, have the Federals had much lately to encou-
rage them elsewhere. In Western Virginia a warm en-
gagement in the neighbourhood of the White Sulphur
Springs, between a force of 2,000 to 3,000 Confederates
under General Sam Jones, and a not dissimilar force of
Federals under General Averill, resulted on August 26 dnd
27 in the unmistakable defeat of the latter. The details of
the capture by Captain Wood of two Federal steam-vessels
engaged in blockading the mouth of the Rappahannock
River must have long ago been reported in England. But
after the fall of Charleston, the war, according to General
Halleck, is to take a fresh start. The presence during the
last 10 or 12 days of General Lee in Richmond, the long
conferences between him and the President, the sundry
other symptoms, upon which it is unnecessary to dilate,
lead to a suspicion that the fresh impulse which is about
to be given to the war will be imparted not by the Fede-
rals but by the Confederates, and in a quarter where at
present the Federals are supposed to be having it all their
own way.