The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-04 00:00:00

THE Cl' ,TIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(Fro, n the correspondent of the Times,)
NEW YORK, Nov. 20.

Those eel .0 have read the seven or eight letters
preceding this will feel no great surprise on hearing
that Genes al Burnside is in some danger of being
" gobbled up" (to use an elegant American phrase)
by the C 3nfecierates. He may yet offer a glorious
and suer ,essful resistance, or he may adroitly slip
through his enemy's fingers, but that he is in a
somewii lit awkward predicament his best admirers
are not, unwilling to admit. The telegrams are as
yet, according to their wont, obscure and contra-
dictor y , but this much can be satisfactorily made
out—t hat Burnside's advanced forces at London and
King: ,ton came iato contact with the Southerners
under Longstreet, and that, after a series of sharp i
nisbes, which lasted from Saturday, the 14th, '
till •the ensuing Thursday (yesterday), the Federal
fore es bad been driven into Knoxville, and the place
was completely invested. Gen. Shackelford was
attacked by the Confederates on the other side of
the Iloleten, three miles above Knoxville, and held,
it is said, the enemy in check hurieg the whole of
Sunday, It is evident, however, that the Confede-
rate movement took place after a long-meditated
and well- conducted plan, so as to press simultaneously
on all 13'arnsi de's forces, and shut them up in Knox-
ville, th e oo'iy plaee they now hold in East Tennessee.
The loF,ses of the Federals in these various en-
countess, have been rather heavy ; by theirn
and olwsno
aceou is between 200 and 300 on Monday,
on the; following day. General was Sanders
off tl-,e field badly wounded. The Federals, how-
eves , console themselves with the hope that their
61-o/el v's loss must have been far more severe-1,000
cea Monday, 400 or 500 on Tueesnd
momentousa
y
and possibly
By the side of this mom
emeinons episode the other recent incidents of the
war sink into comparative insignificance; "All
quiet'' on the Rapidan and Chattanooga, with the
usual thundering canonade against Fort Sumter--
the flag shot down several times but as many times
hoisted up again, and for the hundredth time within
the last four or five months, the confident predie•
tin nof the surrender of the fort. The pen wearies
w ith writing down the same things again and again.
The affair at Buzzard Prairie, on the east side of
'Bayou Teche, in Louisiana, on the 3d, turns out to
have been a more serious one for the Federals than
had at first been supposed, -Washburne's column
lost in killed, 'wounded, and prisoners, 577 men.
The whole of the Indiana 77th Was captured, the
60th Indiana and 90th Ohio suffered severely.
These, be i.t remembered, are Federal aecoants. It
appears that Washburne's force only owed its safety
to its -ezeellent artillery. The disaster is, indeed,
accoruated for by the alleged fact that the Confede-
ratee3 were as five to one (5,000 against 1,800), but
presence of such superior forces in Louisiana is
:a sufficient evidence of the amount of work the
North has yet to accomplish before the rebellion is
crushed, eves in those territories on the main points
of which the stars and stripes have been waving
triumphantly for the best part of a twelvemonth.
With all their millions under arms, somehow the
Federals seem always to contrive to find themselves
on the battlefield against overwhelming numbers.

It certainly, however, is no easy matter to damp
the spirits ot these wonderful Yankees. Whatever
happens is for the best. Driven from one pesition
they take up the next. They allow no reverse to
shake their confidence of ultimate success. At the
time that General Grant was sent to supersede
Rexieneranz and take the command of all the armies
of the South-West it was expected that " a bloody
and decisive" victory would crush the rebellion at the
close of the seaeon. A month has now elapsed,
and hardly an inch ot ground has been gained in
Tennessee or Georgia—eay, the chances are that
Burnside wili lose mere than he has gained, arid for
the: rest the usual drawn game is being played be-
tween the Rapidan end the Rappahannock. But
now those same Yankees who were " cock sure" of
signal success in the field begin to discover that
*‘they had better stand still." The South is a vast
citadel which cannot be taken by stern'. It must,
therefore, be reduced by blockade.
It may be worth while fur the reader to follow
the treia of Yankee argument. The rebel army in
the field, they reckon, ceoinet exceed 200,000 men.
Of these about 55,000 are under Lae in Virginia,
65,000 more obey Bragg's orders on the borders of
Georgia. The rest are scattered about doing
garrison duty ; 25,000 men are still beyond the
Mississippi. Tae Federals, on the other hand, have
:300,000 conibataets in active service, in the front;
their effective forces are actually three to one to
those of their adversaries. These latter, indeed,
avow that "the Yankees have one army too many
for them:, Each party tries to multiply its forces
by sbifting them rapidly from east to west, from
one camp to another. The Federals are stretched
on a line nearly twice es long as that of the
;Southerners ; but the means of locomotion of which
the former dispose more than compensate for the
disadvantage of double distances. The Confede-
racy is like a vast beleaguered fortress. Reduced
to its present dimensions it is a square, two sides of
which are made by the sea from Baltimore all
man', the coast to New Orleans, and the two others
by the Mississippi from its mouth to the confluent
(In! the Ohio, and further to the meeting of the
I''l4essee and the Cumberland with what the
Frete settlers call La Belle Riviera. With the ex-
ception of the Alabama and the Tombigbee, all the
As the Confederates
are in the hands of the Northerners
e"rederates have lost almost' all communica-
tion by water, so are they also sadly deficient in all
3of locomotion by land. Their rail-
ways are used .
both rails and rolling stock ; and
they have don,
xt to nothing to make up for the
of
wear and tear their extraordinary war move-
ment. Not half
a dozen
been either man locomotive locomotive engines have
d or imported since the
outbreak of the war, and
moreit than 150 have been
rendered unfit for use.
eses and waggons are
also getting scarce, and the
whate u.federat.es must sullly p-
t„plarr guerillas manage
themselves with
to take from their enemy,
elle North, on. the con.
trary, brought ail its energies to
The war has been
bear on its means
godsend to its
of locomotion.
railway companies, and they
r
capital trim ; horses were never mot,:vvelreentiifnulmneorer
ever, the state of the currency beine
taken into con-
sideration, were they to be had at more reielonable
prices. For the last iwo years the North has had
other business than this war. It has htraioed u
ever,
nerve in its furtherance; it pursues it to the lull
extent of its boundless means ; it bears its burdens

without apparent distress.
The blockade is now almost complete. Its effects
began to be evident since the tall of Vicksburg and
Port Hudson. It is even TIOW reducing the rebels

to extremity. There is sore famine iv the South

The Confederates have lost large and vala able tracts
—Tennessee. Mississippi, aid the region beyond.
Georgia. and Alabama could grow corn, out the
planters are slack in their work, for a debased cur-
rency and the dreaded requisitions of the army are
hut indifferent stimulants to agricultural industry..
Crops are said to be short at the South. Th,,re is
real destitution and threatened famine in Dixie.
The Federal captives are an unbear,-"ole burden to
their captors, and from 1,000,' 00 1
o to 800 000
negroes, driven into the e,,, t t , '
n rae .cu, Confederacyfrom the invaded Borde;, state,.
are eating ep the
land like locusts. fell " hy
Every one of these swarthy
felloWs Rgl,
lits t
dinner," ' .t: Union cause whenever he gets a
Su Far
ainae,•Lctixl'hotee,l Yankee politicians, whose words I have
ot,fer side. Th literally. Now for the answer ,on the
F
there is distress in some Loans
of the Oonfederaaet
a .fact not to be disputed. The
t ederal prisonersYalts iclamond and elsewkere have
been submitted to di
said, "lied been far,i,thsue€l2'rings. No an'eat, it is
them for 12 days
At Bello island they ...reaast tdo
Touching the harddhipa or toill' ic,gs," &e.
ever, it is difficult to get at the how-
the truth,
innamon than to
truetheaptives'
recent period nothing was more
ec Up to a very
other's
bear the contending parties
szrse e,
praises of the manner in which their r each
With. That feed has betelno
esPetive pri-
soners were dealt
and very scaree, in ItichtLond we have
on
to doubt, though we may - i hes.tate to believe that
any part of the active Confederate army ever " sob-
4sted on half rations.' The Richmond people Were
•d
-up for their own focd, and bud but little to