The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-09 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

- _
(From Me Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 25.

Ile Administration at Washington and the prints
which yield it a fitful and often captious support
have done their utmost during the week to repre-
sent the defeat of General Rosencranz at Chica-
rna.uga on Sunday last as a slight reverse, even if
it were not a drawn battle between the contending
armies. The main object of these persistent mis-
representations was not so much to deceive the
American people as to gain a few days' grace in
Europe, and to prevent the Scotia that sailed on
-Wednesday from taking out intelligence that might
serve to convince the statesmen and people of
Great Britain and France that the cause of the
Confederacy was by no means so near a collapse as
the State department and all the organs of the Go-
vernment had taken pains to represent. Though
nothing is ultimately to be gained by such ostrich-
like proceedings, of hiding the head and exhibitng
the tail, the people in power are solsensitive to the
eedinion of Europe, though affecting to despise it,
that they think it a master-stroke of policy to
conceal bad news, if it be only for the interval
between the sailing of one steamer and another.
To effect this object they have no resource but the I
manipulation of the telegraphic despatches that
reach them from the seat of war, but as the written
cerrespondence that follows surely, if not very
closely behind, cannot be intercepted in Wash-
ington and doctored in the War Department, the
truth flows steadily out through a thousand loop-
holes, and the Government gets nothing for its
pains,but the discredit of having endeavoured to de-
ceive the public. This has been the case on every
reverse that the Federal arms have suffered during
the war, and such has been notably the case with
regard to the series of battles fought on Saturday
and Sunday last, to which the Confederates seem
to have given the names of the Battles of Unica-
naauga, from the little river on the banks of which
they were fought, at a point about 23 miles from
Chattanooga. Both sides fought desperately, and
while Gen. Bragg, in his official despatches, claims
a great, if not yet decisive victory, Gen. Rosencranz
in his admits his retreat to Chattanooga, and only
qualifies the damaging confession by the assertion
that he is now in a position from which he cannot
be dislodged. It is evident, however, that if he do
not receive speedy reinforcements he will either be
compelled to retreat or be beleagured in that posi-
tion, and perhaps starved into a surrender, for he
is at a long distance from his supplies, which can
only reach him by bridle paths over the mountains,
the intricacies of which are far better known to
his enemies than to himself. General Burnside is
marching to the rescue, and although the Govern-
ment will not admit that he is in any danger, or can
possibly fail to make his way to Rosencranz, such
grave doubts upon the subject are entertained else-
whe!re, that it would grieve many, but surprise few,
to be informed that he was flanked and intercepted
aeid forced to capitulate, with or without a battle.
On the 'seller hand, it must be admitted that the

Confederate General has not done all that he
'attempted to do so. The resistance of Posencranz
was more vigorous than he anticipated. The armies
were pretty equally matched ; and though Rosen-
cranz, by his own showing, had, undoubtedly, the
worst of the encounter, he lives, like other retreat-
ing heroes, to fight another day, and to feed upon
the hope that he may retrieve his losses.
Whether from correct information or the reverse,

•
the Administration and the people have got it into
their heads that General Bragg could not have
turned the tide of battle and stayed the seemingly
triumphant advance of Rosencranz, unless he had
been largely reinforced from the army of General
Lee. Deserters and others represented the army of
Northern Virginia as reduced to one-third of its
original numbers, and the known presence of Gene-
rals Longstreet, Hill, and others, at Chicamauga
lends colour to the report that these distinguished
soldiers rendered more than general aid to General
Bragg on Sunday last. However that may be, the
cry of "On to Richmond" is again raised, and
General Meade has received orders to advance.
He has been to Washington, and after a consulta-
tion of some length with President Lincoln, General
Halleck, and Mr. Stanton—a very ominous circum-
stance—has again placed himself at the head of his
army. So that from Virginia, as well as from
Tennessee and Georgia, great news may be daily
expected. As at least nine-tenths of the troops that
were sent to keep the peace in New York during
the progress of the draught have returned to the
Army of the Potomac, it is possible that General
Meade may have at this moment as many as 100,000
men under his command. How many General Lee
may have is not known to any one on this side of
the Rapidan ; but the chances that he has at least
as many as Meade, and that the stories of the de-
pletion of his ranks are fables, set afloat by his own
spies to deceive the enemy and lure him on to his
destruction, are sufficiently serious to justify all
reasonable Northern patriots, if there be any, in

watching •
with some anxiety for the result.
But although it is abundantly evident that the
campaign in Tennessee and Georgia,
such great results from which
permanenwtefraeil expected, is a temporary,
perhaps a
Repub-
lican journals have discovered a soul of goodness in
the evil thing. Mr. Seward's particular orgaa in
Mr.
the New York press—perhaps Seward himself
—for who else could put so smiling a face on so bad
a business?—says " that every battle, whatever the
nominal result may be,
is a defeat for the South,
simply because every battle thins the ranks of the
faithful few who still keep the field ; doubtless the
choice spirits of the Confederacy.
Whether
win or lose, as long as fighting they
columns, which they cannot fill, makesll, the only gaps in their
only result of 1
their struggles is to defer fora short time the doom
possible revivivus
of the Confederacy."
worlds, could not
to revisit this best of all , were he
speak more hopefully, or overlook more compla-
cently the main element in the agreeable calcula-
tion.
Granted that the South
cannot
gaps created by the successive—if not the successful
fill up the
succumb
—battles which they fight, they must
ultimately—provided always that the i\irt
the more fortunate position of being able to drive
h is in
fresh bullocks (to use Mr. Lincoln'sforcible
simile) to the slaughter pens as fast as the
tveteran
h e
bullocks are put under the sod, or by loss
of their legs are disabled from goring and butting
any more. The whole question hangs on this one
The North knows nothing whatever
supposition.
of the power still remaining in the South to
raise and equip new armies of white men ; nor
whether a quarter or half a million of slaves may
not be quite as ready to fight for their masters as to
on the promise of freedom, or even i
work for them,
for some meaner and less precious inducement. I
And while the North is thus ignorant of both the
ePirit and the resources of the South, any impartial
nb'erver,who is not dazzled by the gorgeous visions
of
condition
Party in power, may discover that the very
is Ilion supposed to exist among the Confederates
- prei4nt
North c amon the Federal people ; and that the
an neither
bounty money by force nor persuasion, by
nor conscription,
which fill up the gaps
Ecription,everyinstead
makes in its armies. The last con-
has only produced
of having produced 300,000 men,
showing. It is B°ooo on the most favourable
even produced extremely doubtful whether it has
the real nunaberOa mans as 60,000. 'Whatever be
mercenary largesubstitutes,
proportion is composed of
original conscripts
andwho take the money of the
afterwards desert in such
deemed barge gangs that it is necessary, by way of
by
example, to shoot them half-dozens in the pre-
sence of the army. And these
00,000
many of them worthless as soldiers, have it is calcu-
lated, or 80,000 men,
cost the Government and
way or other as much as 3,000 dole, the
a People in one
in bounty money and exemption fees, -
partly head,
partly
of accoutrements and transportation, in coat
the expense of keeping an old army, and partly in
of 50,000
to preserve the peace of New York and other men
great
cities while the conscription for a new army was in
progress. The zeal of the native-born American,
far as fighting is concerned, appears to have das
died
out, and the unwelcome business is left to raw new-
comers from Ireland and Germany, who understand
little or nothing of the cause to which they sell
themselves, and who would as readily fight for the
one side as the other if the money inducement were
equal. Whatever z,41, remains in the American