The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1863,

The Emperor of AUSTRIA heading the national
movement for the unification of the Germanic
Empire ! The Archduke MAXIMILIAN preparing to
receive the Imperial purple, crown, and sceptre
won for him in Mexico by the army of NAPo-
IEON 111. ! The stripling King of the GREEKS,
late one of the boy-princes of Denmark, setting out
on his "grand tour" preparatory to his ascending
that uneasy throne at Athens from which the ex-
King OTIIO was so unceremoniously thrust some
few months back by an abrupt revolution ! The
Russian Autocrat still wielding the scourge fiercely
over the insurgent population of his Polish pro-
vinces! The ill-advised King of PRUSSIA becoming
every day more and more estranged from the whole
of the great Confederation he formerly aspired
to lead as Chieftain instead of thus forsaking as
Renegade While such are among the more con-
spicuous contemporary incidents now transpiring in
Europe, the intelligence brought to us from the
opposite shores of the Atlantic, from the seat of war
in the North American Republic, is of the same
weary, hopeless, inconcludent character as here-
tofore.

Another great battle is—of course—said to be
imminent. Believe that who will! Again the
boasted successes of the North turn out to be, in
point of fact, so very little of successes at all that the
Federal Victor at the head of his triumphant army,
if not wholly at a standstill, proves at the very least
to be utterly powerless, so far as relates to his inter-
ference with the movements of his antagonist.
General LEE, since the battle of Gettysburg, has
gone whithersover he listed. He has carried away
with him all his booty. He has borne off with him
not only his own wounded, but the heavy guns cap-
tured from the Northern army during the recent
raid of his own troops into Maryland and Pennsylva-
nia. He has, after deliberately and leisurely
passing the whole of his forces back into
Virginia across the Potomac, retired calmly
and without molestation of any kind from the
Shenandoah Valley, passing through the most con-
venient gap he could find in the range of the Blue
Ridge Mountains, and is so continuing his march on
Culpepper, midway between the North Fork and
the Rapidan, two of the tributaries of the Rappa-
hannock. Only then, at length, as one might sup-
pose for very shame's sake, after all the recent
boasting as to the victorious character of the
Federal achievements at Gettysburg, only then, at
length, when LEE'S army had passed southwards
between the line of the North Fork and that of the
Rapidan, does General MEADE that redoubtable
etrategist, appear to have eo far aroused himself
48 tc send a corps of his pursuing (?) and victorious(?)
army across the former of those two parallel branches
of
the
ah
Norolp , annock, that is, across the line of the
hwith a view to prevent General LEE,
at mere possible, from still carrying on his
movements
to
The result
of completely to his cwn satisfaction !
resolution on the • this tardy display of anything like
in-Chief, being, as We
by the Africa, the basti now learn from our advices
back of the Federal corps
with severe loss by the! a
Confederates. infantry and artillery of the
Elsewhere the tide Ace
unmistakeably against th. again to have turned
No
it was confidently stated b .fib' General BANKS,
y -he
of the Ist instant, had immediately before
Despatch
lately boor
been seriously defeated in Louisiana v. that date
no less than six thousand of his men
as Prisoners,
o
The Confederate General JOHNSTONE r ftp_
pears to be no more pursued by General GRANT
46 the
than,--
sequel to the capture of Vicksburg
9413 we
have seen, and in fact demonstrated by our foregoing
remarks, that other and greater Confederate General
LEE has been pursued all this while by his reputed
victor, as the sequel to the fierce conflict fought
on the ensanguined heights of Gettysburg. Besides
which—Fort Wagner, so far from being taken, is
actually turning the tables upon its assailants, by
bombarding them in their now almost
purely defensive position on Morris _lsland.
Reverting, however, to the chief subject of
interest in regard to this miserable war, the relative

situation of the main armies of the belligerents

respectively under the banners of the Federal and
Confederate Commanders-in- Chief, it now appears

probable from this latest information brought acruss

the ocean by the Africa, that General LEE is

dexterously withdrawing his army by a /Wag