The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-05 00:00:00

,
,
411
(4."111161‘1: .100 t• 11
44.11,

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1863,

The Federals, after all, appear to think that they
helve really not by any means, as yet, had enough
of it. Their Debt was calculated to amount, cn the
Ist ultimo, to no less an aggregate amount than
197,000,000 dollars ; that is to say, only 3,000,000
dollars less than around total of 200,000,000. Mean-
while, as the last phase of the sanguinary and costly
war upon which they have entered with such insen-
sate fury, this last bran new Commander-in-Chief of
their principal forces, the army especially appointed
to protect the capital from the hazard of the
daring attack recently threatened to it by
the main body of the Confederates under
General LEE—this boasted conqueror of
LEE, this vaunted victor over his Confederate
troops, this last great Discovery of President LIN-
COLN as a Strategist, General MEADE, has been
adroitly lured across the Potomac by General LEE,
under the mistaken idea that the latter with his
whole armament was in full retreat upon Culpepper.
Acting upon this erroneous impression, General
MEADE, as we know, recently conveyed the whole
of his army across the River Potomac, close by
Harper's Ferry, thence moving confidently along
the south-east incline of the Blue Ridge
Mountain Range, bent upon intercepting
General LEE'S supposed flight down the
Shenandoah Valley, and upon thus actually cutting,
him off fromßichmond ! A " strategic movement "
admirably well thought of in itself. Only—that
in the very act of effecting it, in the most brilliant
manner imaginable, General NIEADE awakens
to the recognition suddenly, at lest, of the unwel-
come truth that his wily antagonist is in no way
disposed to retreat at all ! That, in poiat of fact,
his recent delay since crossing the river boundary-
line from Maryland into Virginia, is at-
tributable simply to his fixed determination
to carry away not only the whole of
the vast amount of plunder gathered together by
him both in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but,
with that plunder, the whole of the new crops
reaped and collected in the Shenandoah Valley.
Nay, General MEADE not only has opened his eyes
at length to the discovery of this, as the actual
secret of his arch foe's recent and (until now) most
illusory course of proceedings, but, in common with
many of the best informed, both in the Governmental
capital and at his own headquarters, he begins to
have serious doubts whether it may not really prove
to be ultimately the case, as it is now confidently
stated to be—viz., that General LEE, so far from
meditating any retreat, is seriously preparing for a
new and more audacious invasion of the North, for
a new raid into Maryland, for a bold descent upon
Washington! Tae statement that such is the in-
tention of the Confederate Commander-in-Chief,
moreover, is now being not thus merely and
vaguely generalised, but is resolving itself into the
specific announcement that LEE proposes forthwith
to cross the Blue Ridge in an advance upon his
intending pursuers (!) somewhere about either
Chester or Thornton Gap.
However this may be in respect to the next
possible transformation in the aspect of the
cam-
paign, the situation distinctly occasioned already
by the belligerents was, when our last advices left
the opposite shores of the Atlantic, per the Jura,
was threatened
such as we have described it ! Tae biter
with being bitten. The assailant was
gathering up his resources with a view to act a little
more prudent lY -
upon the defensive I And, mean-
while, on the other side of the Potomac, to the north-
east of that river, the draft was being resolutely
resisted by the
citizens of Maryland. Wher-
ever an enrolling officer had established his
quarters for the time
rary habitat had beeit feta being,
his tempo
"81Y
attacked by the
people, and in several instances
burnt to the ground by the assailants. had been actually
revolt Yet, with all
this upon their hands, with
rife amongst
them, with killing, at any rate the killing of
negroes, come to be looked upon as u
accomplished during the progress of a 0
Street murder if
with their debt approximating on the istult. to
riot,
no less fearful an aggregate than 200,000000
dollars, with the Confederate army net flying
in hot haste down the Shenandoah Val'ey'
but coolly biding its time in the Upper Potomac
for a fresh invasion of Maryland—the Federals,
in spite of all this, as we began 143-intimating, Would
really and seriously appLar to think that they have
not by any means as yet had enough of it. Tney
are striving to have still more upon their hands, to
thrust additional irons into the fire, to light the old
metaphorical candle at both ends! The candle here
not inaptly typifying that late " shining light" the
Republic of the United States ! To light the candle
at both ends—besides continuing industriously to
melt it quite effectually in twain in the middle !
What in effect was still the persistent clamour
of the redoubtable New York Herald just prior
to the Jura leaving Quebec upon the 25th ultimo?
Why, nothing less than that President LIN-
COLN should at length be urged most strene
ously to secure the sympathetic co-operation of
ill the men, not only in the North but also eien