The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-15 00:00:00

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY,

(FROM THE TIMES SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FEB. 28.
It has been stated that, in spite of the legisla-
tion of each individual State, Southern planters
would give evidence of their belief in the proxi-
mity of peace by sowing a breadth of cotton
sufficient to yield two-thirds or three-fourths of
an average crop. It is obvious that such is also
the apprehension of the majority of Southern
journals, which teem with earnest appeals to the
planters not to be deluded by anticipations of an
early peace, which would lead them to expose the
country to the appaling alternative of starvation or
surrender. There is little doubt that if the Yankees
knew it, the next four weeks, during which it is
doubtful whether military operations on a large
scale can be carried on, might be fraught with
danger to the very existence of the infant Confe-
deracy. Everywhere in this section the conviction
is paramount that, if an armistice were once con-
cluded, active hostilities would never again be re-
sumed. An offer at this moment by the Federals
of an armistice for three months upon favourable
terms would be apt to be accepted, and neither
argument nor entreaty would avail to prevent large
crops of cotton being planted. The suspension of
the blockade for three months would not be as fatal
to the North as might at first sight be imagined.
All the Northern war ships upon the sea cannot
prevent the arrival in Southern ports of an average
of at least two vessels a-week, and I have been
astonished to notice how the stock of all kinds of
imported goods has grown since my first acquaint-
ance with the Confederate States, five months ago.
Many luxuries, such as wines, brandies, silks,
muslins, and books, would be gratefully welcomed
if the blockade were temporarily lifted ; but they
are not vital to the salvation of the young na-
tion. What is vital is that plenty of food should
be grown within the bounds of the Confederacy,
and anything which militates against the devotion
of the next few weeks to the preparation of the
ground for cereals would be of more advantage to
the North than half a million of men. Happily
there seems to be a growing sense everywhere of the
danger arising from a scarcity of the great staples
of food ; but there is nevertheless a tendency in the
cotton States to plant a greater breadth of their
great staple, as also in Virginia to plant more to-
bacco, than is consistent with the safety of the en-
tire community. Fortunately, the opportunity for
arresting the growth of cereals by the offer of a
temporary armistice has not been perceived by the
Federals—it will be too late to make any such over-
ture when these words are read in the Northern
States.

But, in the interim between the present time and
the wheat harvest in July, it is shrewdly suspected
in Northern, and generally admitted in Southern,
journals that there will be a pressure upon the Con-
federacy to find a sufficiency of meat and bread for
each of the large armies which have sprung from
the soil. It is known universally, and I may there-
fore be permitted to mention, that the wheat crop
of 1862 was an unusually poor one in the Confede-
rate States, and, although a sufficiency of grain for
the year's supply of food was grown, the limited
means of transportation possessed by the Confede-
rates are taxed to the utmost to convey this grain
from remote corners of States to the spots where
it is wanted for consumption. In no other item
has the pressure of the blockade's grip been so
heavily felt as in its prohibition of the import of
English iron. With the ample command of labour
which the slave population furnishes to this Go-
vernment, many fresh railroads would have been
made had rails been forthcoming for their tracks.
In one or two very important cases an hzatus in
an extensive internal system of communication
has been supplied by the Government. For in-
stance, one of the great internal highways from
east to west has been completed by the link of
railroad from Selma, on the Alabama River, to
Meridian, in Mississippi, which supersedes the ne-
cessity for the long detour by Mobile, and renders
nugatory any attempt to cut off communication be-
t ween east and west by destroying the railroad which
connects Montgomery with Mobile. It is astonish-
ing that no such attempt should have been made
from Pensacola, which has long been in Federal
hands, and is distant not more than 40 miles from
Pollard, on the Alabama and Florida Railroad.
The opportunity thus afforded of isolating the east
from the west, and of impeding the circulation of
an important aorta of the Confederate heart by an
aneurism at Pollard, has never been seized
during nearly two years of warfare. The open-
ing of the railroad from Selma to Meridian has
frustrated a policy which might have seriously
damaged the Confederates, and which obviously
ought to have suggested itself to the Washington
Junto. The measuring tape by which to compute
and account for Confederate success has long struck
me as being not so much the sagacity and energy of
the Cabinet at Richmond as the singular blindness,
incredible want of enterprise, and general incapa-
city of the Cabinet at Washington.
Another instance in which the Confederate Go-
vernment is completing an important link of rail-
road is to be found in the line which they are
building between))anville in Virginia and Greens-
borough in North Carolina (a distance of less
than 50 miles), and which will be comp'eted this
summer. By this operation they absolve them-
selves from a dependence upon the line of railroad
which runs from Richmond through Petersburg and
Weldon, and which has for years been the great
highway of connexion between North and South.
By opening another approach to Richmond, through
the heart of Southern Virginia, the Confederacy is
giving but another evidence of what strikes me at
every turn—the progressive and ceaseless increase
of their power of stiff-necked resistance. There
is but one skeleton in the Confederate closet—the
aspet Ull L ki tiler thorn will nut lie Lu unit suffer-
ing to be endured from shortness of commons be-
tween this time and the let, of August. No such
spectre has ever haunted the imagination as that
the South will be starved into the terms of Messrs.
Seward and Sumner, who, rightly or wrongly, are
here regarded as the twin instigators of a war which,
although loving each other little, they coincide at
fomenting. But it will perhaps gratify these gen-
tlemen to learn that the seven or eight millions of
their brethren whom they are aiming to win back
by such love philtres as the plunder of ancestral
plate, china, pictures, and servants, the desecration
of family burying-grounds, the shamless outrage of
women, will during these next few weeks suffer
severely. If hunger and want, and even in some
cases, famine, however, could avail to break the
spirit of this people, there would not now be hun-
dreds of thousands of ardent Confederate soldiers
in the field. Nor can any such pressure, it is be-
lieved, be hereafter experienced as will do more
than make the next few months exceptionally con-
spicuous as periods of more than usual suffering.
Debit Deus his quoque finent. There may be still in
store for these sore-tried States further draughts
of the sup of misery, which must be drained before
the goal is won. That it will eventually be won
neither man, woman, nor child among the thousands
I have conversed with entertains a shadow of doubt.
It is unquestionably competent to the Federals to
increase the pressure of want by their possession of
some of the finest grain-growing districts of the
Confederacy. All the Northern moiety of Virginia,
the fruitful valley of the Shenandoah, the Eastern
section of North Carolina, produce in ordinary times
most of the grain which supplies bread to the South,
or is exported throughNewYork to Brazil and South
America. Upon each of these districts the iron heel
of the invader is planted. Furthermore, in that
portion of Tennessee which is in the Federal grasp
General Rosecrans has forbidden every kind of agri-
culture, and aged men and women and children (the
sole denizens left in that region) who reject the
oath of allegiance are driven down South at the
point of the bayonet, to increase the number of
mouths which the Confederacy has to feed. Another
grf at source of supply is cut off by the suppression
of the North Carolina fisheries, which ordinarily
yield millions of herring and shad, salted on the spot
t.y large gangs of male and female negroes. In this re•
bpta the North Carolina herring far surpasses the
Seotian, which is caught out at sea, thrown
into the hold of a ship, and not salted for many
days after it is. secured. The salt herring of North

Carolina is here asserted to be the finest in the
world. A gentleman who owns one of these

fisheries told me that he had caught at one draught
enough herrings to fill 180 barrels. The offal of
the fish is valuable as manure, and the yield of
Indian corn from fields sprinkled with the heads
and entrails of the shad is said to be something
fabulous. It has been customary to feed the ne-

groes upon salt fish, which, as well as salt pork,

they infinitely prefer to fresh meat. tut this great

staple of Southern food has been cut off by the Fede-
ral possession of Albemarle and Pimlico Sounds.
Nevertheless, such is the wealth of the interior
waters and bayous and lagoons which still remain

to the Confederacy, that it is doubtful whether, if
only transport could be commanded, the whole
population might not be supported on fish alone.
For instance, the bay of Mobile seems literally
paved with oysters, not less delicious than the bi-
valves of the James River, with which Richmond
is bountifully supplied. The "shell roads" at Mo-
bile and New Orleans, constructed of oyster shells,
testify to the abundance of the Yield in the neigh-
bourhood of those cities. Again, the extraordinary
affluence of game and deer and wild ducks through
the Southern States assists their commissariat, and

support hundreds of families in remote country dis-
tricts. For some time the scarcity of shot mili-
tated against the destruction of small game, but
recently a wooden shot tower has been success-
fully established at Petersburg, in Virginia, and
shot is becoming cheap and abundant. It
is extravagant to fancy that enormous districts,
teeming with the richest gifts of nature, and
blessed with a climate incompatible with the con-
sumption of an Englishman's allowance of animal
food, are inadequate to the support of a sparse po-
pulation, even though agriculture be partially sus-
pended. The sole difficulty is to bring the food and
the mouths together. This is the enigma with the
solution of which until the whe at harvest of July
scatters plenty over the land the Confederates States
will have to grapple. It would materially assist
them if twine for making seines and fishing nets
could be brought in through the blockade.
Atlanta, the town from which this letter is dated,
is one of the most active and pushing cities of the
enterprising State of Georgia, numbering already
about 16,000 souls, the growth of less than a dozen
years, which have seen a network of railroads spring
into existence, with Atlanta as their meeting point
or centre. "No one goes anywhere," says a South-
ern proverb, " without passing through Atlanta."
At this moment Atlanta may be considered as the
base whence the fine army of Gen. Johnston, situated
some 160 miles away, at Tullah oma, in Tennessee,
draws its supplies. Circumstances at this moment
disable me from paying a visit to Chattanooga)
where are Gen. Johnston's head-quarters ; but the
opportunity of conversing here daily with officers
and men fresh from his army enables me to speak of
its condition and prospects with almost as much
familiarity as if I had visited it. It is but justice to
Gen. Bragg, who, as a strict and uncompromising
disciplinarian, has done much good, but gained much
unpopularity, to say that his troops are in admirable
heart and condition, considerably stronger numeri-
cally than when they fought the battle of Murfrees-
borough, and stationed in a carefully chosen and
strongly-fortified position, which is little likely to be
carried even by a vast superior force. But it is also my
duty to record that, so far as can be judged from the
Confederate lines, there is every indication that
General Rosecrans's army is in a fine state of disci-
pline, that it is impregnated with much of the spirit
of its able commander, who is far more valued in

,his section than any other Federal leader, and that

the stories of its demoralisation and disaffection are
such stuff as dreams are made of. The indications
of the future from the existing condition of affairs
seem to me these :—lf a battle is fought between
the two armies as they now stand, there is little
reason to think that the force which has been or-
ganised by Gen. Bragg, and will be handled by Gen.
Johnston, can be forcibly expelled from its strong
line of defences, which reach from Tullahoma to
Manchester. On the other hand, it appears to me
doubtful whether Gen. Johnston can do more than
hold his own, and still more doubtful whether he
will be able, in view of the largely superior force of
Gen, Rosecrans, to push his enemy after he has
repulsed him, and whether the impending battle
will not add another to the long list of bloody and
inconclusive skirmishes which an able English
military critic calls attention to and deplores. It
would gladden many hearts in the Confederacy if a
few thousands more men, who might well be spared
from many points, could be placed at Gen. John-
ston's disposal, and a victory thus insured which
would paralyse even the elasticity of Yankee cupi-
sity. There is every reason to hope that such a
victory gained upon soil bitterly hostile to the in-
vader, and taken advantage of by the immense
cavalry force under Generals Van Dorn, Morgan,
Wheeler, Warton, and Forrest, might for once be
turned into a rout, and Tennessee and Kentucky
wrung from the invader. It would be doubtful
whether all the powers with which a sycophantic
Congress has armed Mr. Lincoln—who is at once its
master and its creature—would suffice, in face of
such a crushing reverse, to crowd more armies into
the field.

There is much in the character and temperament
of General Joseph E. Johnston to induce the belief
that he is likely, if he gets a chance, to strike a
crushing blow. In tactical knowledge he has no
equal on this continent. Thoughtful and meditative,
and well read, especially in military history, his
conversation is eminently bright and suggestive.
But it is upon the field and under fire that he is
said to appear to most advantage, as he guides and
directs the hurricane of battle. Upon those imme-
diately about him General Johnston exercises that
electric influence which is always inspired:oy strong
aracters.

The great obstacle to an immediate move on the
part of General Rosencrans—an obstacle which, in
my opinion, will not be removed until the end of
March, if then—is the ocean of mud with which the
surface of Tennessee and Kentucky is thickly
coated. Of all the different textures and com-
plexions of mud throughout North America there
is nothing to equal the viscuous, glutinous slime of
these two States. Such has been its tenacity these
last two months that the operations of the Confe-
derate cavalry, which was expected to have been
active this winter, have been retarded by it. It is
raining this day harder than ever; every little
creek and rivulet is brimful and running like a mill-
race ; the big rivers are swollen to bursting. The
Mississippi has driven the Federals at Vicksburg
from the neighbourhood of the puny ditch through
which he diedains to flow, and has burst his wonted
bounds, and all this time the misguided and long-
suffering people of New York are told that Rosen-
crans (all the horses in whose army could not move
a heavy gun for a mile) is advancing or manceuv-
ring, when he and his staff can scarcely ride five
miles from their own tents. If it were possible for
one who has looked on us at this war from its com-
mencement to feel surprise at anything, assuredly
the chronic gullibility of the Northern public would
move his wonder and contempt. At this moment

the New York press teems with assertions that the
canal at Vicksburg is deep enough for gunboats; that
the attack on Charleston is imminent, if not com-
menced ; that a new road into the. Yazoo River, and
thus to the back of Vicksburg, is on the point of
being opened through the Yazoo Pass; that Rose-
crans has made some astonishing move ; that Vicks-
burg is about to be evacuated. As for the disposition

and numbers of the Confederate armies, and the
whereabouts of leading Confederate Generals, every
speculation and surmise save those which probabiiity
suggests are unweariedly indulged in. If there was
the slightest chance of the English people, after 22
months of experience of the war press of the North,
giving credence to what they read, it might be de-
sirable to add a few words of general warning. But
it. will be enough tor the present to repeat the opi-
nion I expressed three weeks ago—that the canal at
Vicksburg is cut in the wrong placd, and will con-
tinue to be a failure, unless an infinity of labour, of
which the Mississippi's overflow at present forbids
the application, is expended upon it. The attack on
Charleston has not taken place, does not appear to
be imminent, is beginning to be generally disbe-
lieved in, although patiently awaited and vigilantly
guarded against. It is known that a bitter disagree.
ment has taken place between Generals Hunter and

roster; that the latter, Who has considerable repu-
tation as an engineer, is averse to the attack, and
thinks failure certain, and that this opinion of his
has become widely known among his troops. In
repard to the assertion that a new road through
the Yazoo Pass can be opened, and the Confederate
navy yard at Snyder's Bluff, on the Yazoo River,
approached by vessels entering the river from
above, suffice it to say that heartily gratified
would the Confederates be to see such an attempt.
The Yazoo Pasa, long since disused, is entered out
of the Mississippi river, of which the levee has re-
cently been cut about 100 miles below Memphis.
Thence by a tortuous and intricate route of inter-
nal navigation, through lagoons and bayous and
small shallow, winding streams, a light vessel
might be punted into a river which eventually
joins the Yazoo. It is hardly necessary to discuss
the probability of the accomplishment of such a
feat. A tree felled across any of the streams would
check a vessel's advance; it might chance to find
that another tree felled behind it would check its
retreat. General Rosencranz is as unlikely to move
at present as is Vicksburg to be evacuated.

Vicksburg is believed to be impregnable. In re-
g,.rd to Charleston, in spite of General Beauregard's
proclamation advising non-combatants to leave the
town, ladies swarm upon the Battery, and pick
their way daintily among the frowning guns. Nor
would they desert the town though its bombard-
ment were to commence to-morrow until they
knew its destruction or evacuation to be inevitable.
Destroyed it may possibly be; evacuated and aban-
doned to the enemy, so long as one brick stands on
another, it will be never. The possibility of Fort
Sumter, which was built before the present enor-
mous projectiles were in fashion, being battered
down by-the Federal ironclads is the vexed question
of the moment. Opinions from those who are worth
listening to seem to incline to the belief that
the fire of the guns of Fort Sumter is more
likely to be fatal to the ironclads than the fire
of the ironclads to Fort Sumter. No attack is for
a moment to be dreaded which is conducted by less
than six ironclads,—more, I believe, than the
Federate now have off the harbour. But let it not
be thought that the fall of Fort Sumter and the
fall of Charleston are synonymous. All round the
harbour,—at Fort Ripley in its centre, at Fort
Moultrie on its flank, on the Battery, which is the
apex of the city,—big guns have been mounted, and
they must be dismounted or silenced before the
town can be shelled effectually. The abortive at-
tempta which the Yankees have directed at Sa-
vannah against a much weaker work—Fort Al'Alis-
ter—are little encouraging as indications of the
damage which they are able or likely to inflict.
The great bugbear of the Southern people 12
months ago, the ironclad gunboat of their enemy, is
losing all its terrors. Cavalry and light artillery
attack them fearlessly and successfully upon the
small rivers. Barges and cotton boats swarm round
them on the Mississippi between Vicksburg and
Port Hudson ; the lightest of horse artillery guns
close the Rappahannock against them below
Fredericksburg. _ _

If any evidence that the pressure upon the Con•
federacy for food will hereafter not be unendurable
was sufficient to pierce the judicial blindness of the
Washington Cabinet, it might be found in the fact
that none of the overtures of General Banks at New
Orleans to give in exchange for cotton whatever
the Confederates needed,—whether boots, or cloth-
ing, or coffee, or provisions,—have bei n for one
moment entertained. It will have been observed by
attentive readers of Mr. Seward's despatches to the
Federal Ministers in London and Paris that among
his redundant and unfulfilled promises none is
more confidently preferred than the pledge that
England and France shall receive abundance of
cotton through Southern ports in Northern hands.
How far he has hitherto been able to redeem this
promise let the history of New Orleans since its
formal occupation by General Butler, on the first
day of last May, unequivocally declare. It is
stated to me that in 10 months not more than
20,000 bales of cotton—the amount frequently
shipped in peaceful times in a single day—have
issued from that port. Is it hoped that larger sup-
plies will be forthcoming hereafter ? The Confede-
rates are able to send out from such ports as
still remain to them as much cotton as is suf-
ficient to give them ample credit in Europe. More
than this they have no occasion to ship. And it
may safely be predicted, be the scarcity of food what
it may, that some other way of making good the
deficiency will be found than bartering for Yankee
provisions the equivalent for European gold. There
is at this moment in the Port of Wilmington a small
Scotch steamer, veliose name it is not necessary to
mention, swift as an antelope, drawing 41 feet of
water, and able to run into any inlet along 2,500
miles of coast. What is to hinder the importation,
in similar steamers, of cargoes of provisions, should
necessity demand ? Nor are there wanting other
methods of supply which will suggest themselves to
any intelligent man who is not blinded by the
amaurosis which seems epidemic in Washington.
As I write, February is passing away. It cicsed
in 1862 upon the deepest depression and the darkest
hour that the Confederacy has as yet seen. Forts
Donelson and Henry had just been surrendered ;
Nashville with vast stores and munitions abandoned
to the enemy ; one of the strongest points on the
Mississippi—Columbus in Kentucky —which ought
to have emulated the subsequent fame of Vicksburg,
had been, without resistance, evacuated ; Manassas
in Virginia was about to be occupied by General
M'Clellau. Every where panic and retreat, and eva-
cuation and surrender, marked the policy of the
Confederates. The ears of residents in Washington
were deafened by the ceaseless cry of "Another
Federal victory." Yankeedom was jubilant, inso-
lent, aggressive. A year has passed, and it is
difficult to conceive that one is on the same con-
tin, nt. Richmond is no longer threatened, or so
feebly that buildings and improvements progress
with more than the activity of peace. February
has passed without any disaster to the Confederacy,
although every little stream in the country is flush
with its banks, and navigable by gunboats; Charles.
ton and Vicksburg and Port Hudson mock at their
daunted and hesitating assailants ; Generals Lee and
Johnston await an attack with the calm confidence
of conscious strength ; there is feebleness, vacilla•-

tion, timidity in the counsels of Washington and in
the attitude of its generals in the field. The lesson
which it seemed to me that the battle of Fredericks-
burg could not fail to teach must, however, be
burnt deeper into the Ftderal heart before fruit is
borne of it. Can that lessen be taught in any
other way than by an assumption on the part of the
South of that attitude of aggression which they
have so long been satisfied calmly to repel, but
which it seems likely that their enemy's pertinacity
and inaptitude to learn will leave them no option
but to end by espousing ?

THE COAL AND IRON DISTRICTS.—It is rather
surprising to record that the emigration from the
coal and iron districts of South Wales at the present time
is larger than has ever been known. At several of the prin-
cipal works as many as 30 have left at one pay, and not a
week passes without a few leaving. The majority of the
emigrants are able-bodied young men, and it is more sur-
prising still to mention that the destination of nearly all of
them is New York, or some other port of the once United
States. Higher wages and ready employment are the rea-
sons given for emigrating, but as the state of things in the
Northern States is so well known among our working popu-
lation, the matter has naturally excited suspicion, and it is
feared that agents are at work holding out inducements to
the emigrants with the view of making them eventually
seful in the prosecution of the war against the South.
THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT'S WOLF-HUNTING
EXPEDITION.—The Duke of Beaufort's first day's
wolf-hunting in Poitou turned out a failetre, for the simple
and rather to be expected reason that his well-trained fox-
hounds took no more notice of a wolf than they woßld of a
donkey, and positively declined to
.run after it. A very
largevarie s
from field,
250
oe
to estimate s
4t iomo
,a
turned
eu r
nof e
dwohuitc
ohn Easterlin
th the local
Tuesday,local journals
brim-
ful
peer's pack. After drawing a cover for two hours, a fine
wolf was routed out by some native dogs. The pack got a
wt
beoo
rk theirdorenle
good view of him, but, " Och hone 1 wierastrie I" he was
from their indifference, The huntsman is going to try
notw
the what
ant gameecwa n
suc-
ceed. Foxhounds may
wolves close to their noses, In '
cur dog to a red herring. A
sport, as soon as the remaining g great
races manof ,
uainyireestah, aend no hallooing could rouse them
time he will doubtless suc-
bcc,,fwmatayhdeoemf
t,o educating
hunt
turning
rann.iynttghh eionuhgte, utfnrradopms
trapped
Jockey Club are, going to join the Dukeyomethe chance of
are over,—Paris Letter. • •
thne springmbrs season
fasthone