The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-31 00:00:00

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, Feb. 6.
There is current at present in the Confederacy a
proverb to the effect that it is safer to be engaged
in any battle, however bloody, than to undertake a
journey by railroad from Mobile to Vicksburg.
Certainly, as the traveller proceeds at the rate
of eight miles an hour over the last 45 miles of his
journey, and sees alongside of the track smashed
railroad cars, broken locomotives, the wrecks of a
thousand previous accidents, he will understand
that there is some truth in the proverb, and will be
thankful that he has got to his journey's end. Cir-
cumstances have brought upon the short link of
railroad which connects Vicksburg with Jackson
(the capital seat of the State of Mississippi) an
amount of pressure which the line was never de.
signed to support. Built with rails of the lightest
iron, bound together with the flimsiest ties, it is
astonishing that the permanent way should not long
ago have broken down and become impassable, when
it is considered that this railroad has for months
and months been the main link of communication
between the East and West. Over it have passed
thousands of head of cattle, vegetable products of
all kinds, the rich growth of Louisiana, Arkansas,
and Texas; millions of barrels of sugar and molas-
ses, brought up the Mississippi from Louisiana, and
cash of the traffic which once flowed up the river
from New Orleans, to be in part disgorged at Mem-
phis, and to find its way to the East along the Mem-
phis and Charleston Railroad, of which a consider-
able portion has long been in the Federal grasp. It
is strange that the lesson can never be learnt by the
Washington Cabinet that the mighty area of the
Southern States forbids the possibility of bringing
them to terms by the seizure of all the strong places
upon the seaboard and along the rivers. For months
past all the best harbours on the coast, and most of
the important towns upon the great rivers, have
been held by the North. But although New Or-
leans, Pensacola, Key West, Port Royal, Beaufort,
and Norfolk, and many other points are in the
hands of the Federals, the only effect pro-
duced has been to weaken them, by exacting
large forces to hold these stations by sea and land ;
and in the interim the port of Charleston alone
has been a sufficient alkali to neutralise the acid of
Federal possession in twenty other spots. Nor
is there any reason to doubt that, if Charleston,
Savannah, Mobile, Wilmington, and Galveston fell
into Northern hands, there would be found along
the 3,000 miles of coast between the Capes of the
Chesapeake and the Rio Grande many other points
into which vessels could and would run notwith-
standing the efforts of ten times the number of ships
which the Federals can send to sea. Similarly, of
what avail is it that the Mississippi should be clutched
at New Orleans and Memphis, when Vicksburg end
Port Hudson, and the intervening 150 miles of river,
are closed against Federal intrusion ? Nor would
the position of the Federals be greatly bettered it
the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg and Port
Hudson could be finally silenced. Iron-clad vessels
could, in that case, go up and down the, river, but
no trading vessel which descended the river would
ever reascend it to tell her tale at St. Louis or Cin-
cinnati. That the communication between the trans-
Mississippi States and the East could never be cut
off, though Vicksburg and Port Hudson should fall,
is abundantly evident from the experience which
the Federals ought to have gained on the Potomac.
It cannot be unknown to Mr. Seward that all the
numerous-Federal vessels on the Potomac, assisted
by the presence of a large Federal army, stretched
between Washington and Fredericksburg, were
powerless to check smuggling along some 150 miles,
through the majority of which the Potomac is ten
miles broad. How could it be possible to control
the hundreds Of miles through which the Father of
Waters rolls his mighty flood to the sea, even though
all the assembled fleets of the world were to float
upon his broad bosom ? The Confederates know
too well the exhaustion of their enemy to be daunted
by the temporary inconvenience to which the undis-
puted possession of the Mississippi from St. Louis to
New Orleans by the war vessels of the North might
possible expose them.

But it is not necessary to point out to the
North That the object at which they are aiming
—the undisputed navigation of the Mississippi by
their vessels of war—will not bring the results
which they fondly imagine. Their object is every
day shown to be more and more unattainable, and,
be the ignorance of the Northern journals on the
subject what it may, it is impossible at this moment
that either Mr. Stanton or General Halleck can
entertain a particle of hope that Vicksburg will fall.
I have been astonished to find into what a Gibraltar
this insignificant hill city—wholly without fortifica-
tions at the commencement of the war, never
thought of as a defensible point until Governor
Pettus, of Mississippi, planted three or four light
pieces of artillery on the bluff, and checked the
panic terror which followed the surrender of Fort
Donnelson nearly a year ago, and prompted
the evacuation of Fort Pillow, Columbus, Island
No. 10, Nashville, and every strong point on or
near the Mississippi River—has gradually grown
under the favourable combination of such cir-
cumstances as ground eminently adapted by na-
ture for defence, skilful direction of engineer
officers, the labour of twelve or fourteen hundred
negroes, and long absence of interference by the
Federal forces. The situation of Vicksburg is sin-
gular, and not easily deseribed. The channel of
the Mississippi, as the river descends from the North.
is suddenly twisted in a north-easterly direction for
a couple of miles, when it again turns abruptly and
sweeps round towards the south-west, leaving b
low, narrow spit of land exposed and dry, and
almost enfolded within the embrace of its waters.
It might be imagined that a gigantic letter U,
narrow, and very deeply indented, had been traced
in the spongy soil. Assuming that the river flows
in at the apex of the right-hand stroke of this
imaginary U, the situation of Vicksburg would be "
from the bend at the bottom of the left-hand stroke , I