The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-15 00:00:00

THE WESTERN STATES.

;Fr om the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, Sept. 23.
I 'h .d devised to go down the Mississippi River
from. :St. Louis, and visit the various ports of Cairo,
Mern'ishis, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Natchez, and
New Orleans, when, in an evil moment, the war-
liter) exploits of General Rosencranz diverted me
fro m my purpose, and here am I, now, on my way
to Chattanooga, with very little hope ever to be able
to reach my destination. The news of the san-
g'
tinary affairs in East Tennessee of Saturday and
un day last only reached St. Louis on Monday, and
threw that city into a perfect fever of frantic ex-
pectation. The movements of General Rosencranz
across the Tennessee River had caused my friends
the officers of the Union party to look grave, and
they professed, rather loudly than earnestly, their
full confidence in that General's prudence and cool-
ness, asserting that " he knew what he was about,
and if he deemed it safe to move forward, there
could be no reason Why he should keep back." That
grea t uneasiness beset my friends the Union officers'
minds there could, however, be no doubt, and when
the intelligence came, like a clap of thunder, that
Rosencranz had unexpectedly found himself in pre-
sence of superior forces, that he had been attacked
by the combined corps of Bragg, Johnston, and
Longstreet, summing up altogether a force of no
less than 140,000 combatants, people began to feel
sure he had been caught in a trap and decoyed
into a position from which he could not extricate
himself without grievous losses. The first news
reached St. Louis by private telegrams, generally
forwarded by the correspondents of the local press;
these first bulletins—hasty, perhaps) but genuine
—talked of a positive defeat of Rosencranz's
army, of its centre being broken through, of two
divisions in complete 6, deroute and confusion,
and the Commander-in-
Chief being forced back
to Rossville, eight or ten miles from Chattanooga.
Since that first instalment of news the tele-
graph has been closed against all private inter-
course, correspondence is at an end, and all the
information that reaches us in the West comes
in is roundabout way from Washington, where the
United States' authorities monopolise the wires, and
prescribe what we shall read, hear, and believe.
I left St. Louis yesterday at 4 o'clock in the after-
noon, and arrived in this city at 8 this morning, jast
a quarter of an hour too late for the train which,
according to time-tables, should have taken me on
to Nashv'lle this same day—a disappointment too
common to all men travelling by ill. regulated Ame-
rican railways, steamboats, and other public eon-
veyanc,es. As it turned out, it was just as lucky I
could riot proceed on my way, for the people assured
me n.o man could travel from here to Nashville
without a pass from the military authorities, and on
my applying for it to the officer in command, Col.
Mundy, that gentleman used his best arguments to
dissuade me from a journey which, ho assured me,
would be bootless, as the persons in command at
Nashville would never allow me to follow my route
to Chattanooga, or go even a step in that direction.
As I had in my pocket letters for Generals Rosen-
cranz, Burnside, Gordon Granger, and others,
I begged to differ from the gallant colonel, and re-
newed my request that he would supply me with a
pass as far as Nashville, as I there would risk the
alternative of being allowed to travel further or
being compelled to a backward movement. The
colonel was about to relent and comply with my
wishes when an orderly broke in upon U 3, inform-
ing the colonel that the rebel guerillas had burnt
the bridge near Elizabethtown, on the Nashville
and Louisville Railway, only forty-two miles from
this latter place, and that the train had come to
a dead stop there. Presently another pale, breath.
leas messenger rushed in to tell of other out-
rages perpetrated by these same rebel bands
at other points on the same railway, and to
beseech the Colonel to "send as may of his troops
as he could spare for the protection of the endan-
gered. line." Going to Nashville for the next day
or two is, therefore, out of the question no less for
me than for any other person, and here I must stay,
awaiting events. The information we receive from
Washington. respecting the affair at Chattanooga
v4'l be before you much earlier than this letter has
any chance of reaching its destination. All I can
allow my ~elf leave to observe is that, however care-
fally the Washington dispatches may be got up so
as tore assure men's minds, strongly excited by the
first unchecked and unvarnished announcement of
the facts, they do not materially affect the substance
c,f that same announcement, nor do they make
liasencranz's position a whit better than we were
.t first inclined to consider it. Rosencranz, it is
said, " had to bear the shock of 140,000 Confede-
rates ; two of his divisions behaved badly ; he had
to fall back in good order (if so we are to believe
it), and was waiting, either at Chattanooga or at
Rossville, about eight miles above it, such rein-
forcements as General Burnside could bring up to
him from his station at Knoxville, at a distance of
110 miles." Whether these reinforcements would
come up in time, and whether they would enable
the Federate to cope with the force of 140,000 men
wtoom they have already before them, with such
aeiditional aid to the Southerners as might in turn
be sent up from the other side, events will soon de-
cade. Men of Southern tendencies meanwhile are
'wistfully speculating here on what contingencies
might be in store for Rosencranz should the
anxiously awaited reserves chance not to come up in
time, or should they prove to be inadequate to the
want. Even should the Confederates be unable to
drive Rosencranz from Chattanooga and to cut
him to pieces in his retreat across the Tennessee
River, his position would still be extremely pre-
carious, unless he soon found himself sufficiently
strong to take the offensive, as the Washington bul-
letins prophesy, or at least so to protect his rear as
to secure an uninterrupted line of communication
with it. Now, Chattanooga lies at 151 miles from
Nashville, and the latter town is again 185 miles
from Louisville. The distance of 336 miles from his
regular source of supply and actual base of opera-
tion already places him at a considerable disadvan-
tage ; but how much worse would his position be if
either skirmishers from Bragg's army, or rebel
bands, such as have been heard of this morning from
Elizabethtown and other localities, were emboldened
to burn bridges, tear up the rails, and render com-
munication imperfect, if not wholly impracticable !
The Union men, especially those belonging to the
Radical or Ultra-Republican party, attach little im-
portance to the check which the Federal armies have
evidently suffered. " It is only one more of the
bloody,
resultless, and almost purposeless battles of
which this luckless civil war is made up, There
are thousand` of dead and wounded on our side,it is
true," they say, ti but the Union abides. IVe can
afford atany
put up with losses double those
time to
of our enemies. Victory exhausts the Confederates
more surely and irreparably
than any amount
of de-
ranting
feat would ever damage us."
fanatics exult at every mishap that offers any pro-
probability of an indefinite prolongation of the war.
Their work—i. e., the immediate and violent eman-
cipation of the blacks, and the total ruin and deso-
lation of the South—cannot be effected on any
Speedy close of hostilities; it can only be the work
of long, slow, fiercely contested warfare. It is of
vital importance for them that there should be in-
cessant fighting throughout the country so long at
least
as President Lincoln and his Cabinet hold
their swap, The work they have been prevailed
upon to undertake must be accomplished be,
fore the supreme power comes into the hands of less
obstinate men, ssa
0 might listen to the suggestions
of humanity and comet,
to a rational compromise.
Meanwhile, no doubt, even had the fight at Chat-
tanooga no other results, it
i n must create a great
men'smoral revolution in ,a. 3
minds throughout the
States. Since I first landed in country, after
Gettysburg and Vicksburg, nothing
g was more con-
stantly dinned into my ears than the fact that the
Bogus Confederacy was collapsing,
and
their
armies were used up and demoralised, their
Gene-
rals at their wits ends, their means exhausted their
provisions, clothing, shoes, at the lowest ebb,
and that there was hardly a chance of Lee himself
again daring to take the field, so that on the sicae
of Charleston, Mobile, and Richmond the curtain of
this woi ul drama would fall." All this we heard
and read risque ad nauseam, and as extreme heat
put a stop to military operatioas ore a large scale

these broad assertions remained unanswered, when
lot the Confederates not only take the field and ap-
pear in the best trim and equipment, but by one of
those strategic combinations which have been to
them instead of numbers throughout the war they
join issue with that army of the Federals which
was looked upon as the best drilled and tried, out-
wit and actually whip that General on whom the
best hopes of his party began to centre, and whose
late bold movements had elicited so loud an ap-
plause and given rise to such sanguine expectations.
No doubt, mere numbers and the inexhaustible-
ness of material means seem to secure the victory
in favour of the Northerners in the long run ; but
victory is put off from year's end to year's end never-
theless. The South has done and is aoing more than
would be necessary to save its honour,
tahnadt
chance
eaenveeer
ready to take advantage of anything
whatever thep ultra
-
Republicans turn out in its favour;and
Republicans may say to the contrary,
tion of the war has a terribly demoralising tendency
in the North, parties begin to run dangerously
high, and the prospect of anarchy stares the people
in the face.
In Missouri the Radical party are turning all their
energies to remove Gen. Schofield, a gentle, well-
meaning man, whose reluctance to adopt sweeping
measures they construe into sympathy with men of
rebel tendencies. A deputation of these Black Re-
publicans has gone up to Washington to solicit the
recall of the obnoxious commander. Prone as the
Washington Cabinet may be to obey the behests of
the Radicals, it is hardly to be expected that they
will in to this blind animosity against a public func-
tionary who has done his duty with no less zeal
than discernment. But, in the event of the unsuc-
cess of their deputation, the Missouri Republicans
shrink from no violent measures. They have orga-
nised clubs and committees of public safety, who
glory in their open hostility to Gen. Schofield,
Governor Gamble, and nearly all the men now at
the head of the State. The Republican party in
Missouri, among the native Americans, is conspicu-
ous neither for its numbers nor for its character ;
but they bring into the field several thousand Ger-
mans, a nation in itself, especially in Louis, where
they constituted no less than one-third of the popu-
lation. These men are for the most part political
refugees, who left their country in 1849, at the time
of the senseless movement of Badon and other parts
of South Germany. They came to America with
their cry of Hecker Hoch ! and dived into all the
maddest fancies of Red Republicanism. They
are not liked by the generality of Americans,
because they affect irreligious and communistic
notions, and are the easy prey of any demagogue
who will give himself the trouble of leading them
by the nose. Their vote, however gotten, has no
trifling weight, nevertheless; and the Radicals
reckon also not a little on their faust-recht, should
over party contest come to be decided by riots in
the streets. On the other hand, the Democrats, the
peace men, and Conservatives, whether of Southern
tendencies or otherwise, and, in mere self-defence,
even the men at the head of affairs in the State of
Missouri, are compelled to seek among the Irish a
counterpoise against the overwhelming ascendency
of the German element. The Irish, the Roman Ca-
tholics especially, with their clergy at their head,
are the sworn friends of the " Copperheads" in St.
Louis, as they are in New York; and the Americans,
who in their hearts despise both these set of aliens,
are too fain to count their votes on either side in
the event of an election, too glad to set them by the
ears on the occurrence of a popular fight.

Sept. 25.

The road to Nashville is clear since yesterday,
and the official reports of the burning of bridges, and
other damage to the railway line done by the rebel
guerillas, appear to have been greatly, and perhaps
purposely, exaggerated. lam told, however, that
I shall not be able to proceed further than Nash-
ville, as Gen. Rosencranz has issued the strictest
orders that no stranger should on any account what-
ever be allowed to go up to his encampment, alleg-
ing the difficulty he has to contend with in procur-
ing provisions not only for his army, which is well
supplied for a month, but also for the local popuia.
tion, when the trampling of contending hosts has
reduced to the direst distress. Whether actuated by
this or by any other motive, Rosencranz seems de-

termined to have no near witness of his warlike
achievements, and desirous that the world should
only hear of them through the organ of the Washin-
gton official press. His own latest telegraph to Wash-
ington on the 23d, was, " I cannot be dislodged from
my position"--an announcement which must satisfy
the Federal authorities that their general is acting on
the defensive, and that the position of the armies is
completely reversed, as Rosencranz had marched out
of Chattanooga, not with the intention of merely
holding his ground, but of dislodging the enemy.
Private information fresh from Chattanooga is to
the effect that " Rosencranz's army has met with a
defeat which must put them upon the defensive for
some time to come. All the honour of the battles
of Saturday and Sunday last, on the part of the
Federals, is due to Gen. Thomas's corps, which
" was the only oue that did any fighting, and de-
feated Longstreet with terrible slaughter." M'Cook
and Crittenden's corps, which were at the centre,
gave way in every direction," and had the enemy
been aware of their success, and followed up their
advantage, the Federal defeat would have been com-
plete. As it was, Thomas was, by the defection of
the centre, compelled to abandon his part of the
field, and fell back to protect his flank. Wood and
Negley came up into the abandoned centre in the
evening, and the line of battle was thus in some
manner restored. This for Saturday. On Sunday
the Federals had to withstand a second attack, and
it was again Thomas, who" saved the army of the
Cumberland from annihilation.' From 10 to 12
o'clock he repulsed the Confederates in three
charges, when these again turning their onset against
the centre broke M'Cook's and Crittenden's lines,
and drove them " in disgraceful panic" to Rossville
and Chattanooga. Thomas held his ground with
rare steadiness till, by the reinforcement of General
G. Granger, he was enabled to effect his retreat into
Rossville, bearing the brunt of the battle, and co.
vering the retreat of the whole army.

These meagre particulars will probably be of little
importance to England, where they will be preceded
by fuller and perhaps more authentic accounts.
Such as they are, however, I deemed it expedient
to give them in a few words, knowing them to
spring from unsuspected sources. For the rest, it
requires no very deep knowledge of the subject to
be aware that the conflict of Chattanooga, like so
many other battles in this hopeless civil war, was
only a drawn game, void of results, and leaving the
contending parties pretty much as they were. The
Union party are ready to hail defeat as well as vic-
tory as equally sure to lead to the speedy exhaustion
of their foes, while the latter exult in the evidence
et,
their unwearied vitality, and declare that the
real struggle will only begin with Charleston, Rich-
mond, and A • lobile shall have fallen into Northern
hands, When the champions of the Southern cause
will fall backsoo
unththcat vast territory of Alabama,
Georgia, and
cannot penetrate Witharolina, where a hostile army
awayut hard fighting, and where
it cannot advancefrom the sea and rivers
without unheard of efforts
stronghold thtnet:isustain itself. Within
this broad
tno Confederateh
withdraw with
labourers, and there maintain
themselvesnlk of their negro
Provi-
dence work out such good as ni till
them ; for no hcpe deferred wilt disenchant
in store for
of their blind reliance on foreign
aidehent them
them of the vain expectation raised in theiran' weary
by the attitude of France in Mexico. _ hearts
There are
people here in Kentucky who are as sure of a e con-
vention of offensive and defensive alliance" having
been stipulated between the Emperor and the
Southern Commissioner as if they bad seen the
signed and sealed paper with their own eyes.
The state of Kentucky has been " debateable
ground,' between the contending parties for the last
three years, and the war has weighed cruelly upon
it. As many of the youths of the country us en-
listed in the ranks of the Confederate armies at the
outbreak of the war have since volunteered or been
induced to range themselves under the Federal
standards. Of these latter I have heard Union
officers say that they arc brave, hardy soldiers,
highly amenable to discipline, excellent on all
points ,"every Kentucky man invariebly behaving
as if he deemti himself destined for the honours of

the Presidential dignity at the head of the Govern-
ment of the United States." Nothing more common
here than to talk with parents whose children are
equally shared among the contending parties in this
unbrotherly feud, half on the one side, half on the
other of every battle field, and to these it is not easy,
under such conditions, to pray for victory to either
party. cud Kentuck," however, is, in the mass,
stanch Secessionist, or, I should rather say, South-
ern sympathiser, nevertheless. These people are
more outspoken than the Marylanders, and the
Government seems to have too much respect for
their strong-willed and resentful character not to
treat them with comparative gentleness and huma-
nity, The military commander exercising absolute
sway here, such as General Boyle and Colonels
Mundy and Hanson, are all Kentuckians, and their
countrymen have to apprehend from them none of
the wanton brutality to which people at the mercy
of such " Yankee lawyers" as Butler and Schenk
had to submit. With all these advantages, how-
ever, the Kentucky people describe their condi-
tion as deplorable ; they point to the country
houses, homefields, gardens, and groves which have
been burnt down, cut down, or other wise laid waste
by the soldiery quartered there with a view to
punish a supposed rebel, or to being to terms sus-
pected disloyalty. They complain that the laws are
put aside altogether; that, however lenient, the
rule of the military is wayward and arbitrary; that
scarcely a day passes without the disgraceful exhi-
bition of "ladies," as all white women are called in
America, dragged before the Provost-Marshal to
answer the charge of having "waved their hand-
kerchiefs," or otherwise showed sympathy to Con-
federate prisoners.
A whole bevy of 25 misses in their teens, belong-
ing to an " establishment " of which I do not well
know the nature—factory girls, I suspect—had to
put up with that indignity no later than yesterday ;
and although it was admitted that their guilt rested
on no proof, and their innocence was fully established,
still they had to submit to that silly ordeal, the
"oath of allegiance ;" that vain and gratuitous an-
noyance which does not secure the fidelity of a
single citizen, but greatly adds to the number of the
disaffected and the " martyrs." The press, as it enu-
merates these deeds of wanton severity, takes care
to attribute high praises to the men in authority for
the gentleness and courtesy with which they acquit
themselves of their irksome duties. No civility or
politeness, however, can make amends to a young
lady or woman—if the words are equivalent iu a
republic—or to her parents for the part she may be
made to play in a " scene at the Provost Marshal's;"
nor is it any consolation to her or to her friends,
after being dragged into a court-room, to have it
ultimately stated that she was " not guilty of any
offence against the laws or the Government, and her
innocence was clearly set forth." The gallant colo-
nel filling the office of Provost-Marshal, we are
told, " fights treason at home with the same splen-
did bravery which has characterised him heretofore
in the field." A fight with young women, however,
especially if they turn out innocent, must lower a
man of " fearless courage and undaunted will" in his
own estimation, and it is difficult to imagine that
any real strength may accrue to the Government by

taking note of any wave of a handkerchief, or even
of any tear, by Which tender woman ventures to ex-
press her sympathies in behalf of unfortunate valour.
Again, in the same afternoon of yesterday a
" lady" was requested to call at Colonel
Hanson's
office and take the oath of allegiance to the United
States ; she called as desired, but insisted that she
had only lived in Louisville two months, and had
not had time to say anything either for or
against
the Government. The Colonel replied as follows :
" Madam, with all the facilities you have for talking
you could have said a great deal in that length of
time." Upon that suppositious argument that "it
was just possible she might have spoken
for or
against the Government," the oath was enforced
upon her, and she "took the oath.," I know not to
what extent compulsory oaths may be binding on
American consciences, but, judging from the com-
mon standard of humanity, I should feel less dis-
posed to rely on the allegiance of that or of other
ladies after they had been sworn than before.
It is meanwhile by this galling yet almost puerile
system of persecution that the Government, and the
idic-al faction which influences it, lay
up for them-
selves such a treasure of rancour, such an immense
amount of popular hatred in these Southern dis-•
tricts. The mere name of " Yankee "
Was already
sufficiently obnoxious in these parts in former times,
and the very men and officers who are
now fighting
side by side in the Union ranks with
Northerners
and down-Easterners harbour feelings of contempt
and dislike against their " brothers in arms" which
amount to unjust and absurd prejudice. This san-
guinary war could hardly fail to aggravate these
mutual animosities; still torrents of blood shed in
the field, and dire execution in the heat of long con-
tested victory, were hardly fraught with as much
mischief, so far as the prospects of future union as
based on good understanding are concerned, as the
cold blooded severity, the vexatious inquisitiveness,
the fretful jealousy and vindictiveness of the Go-
vernment and its subaltern 'agents. These Louts-
villians, who speak to me unreservedly, are per-
fectly savage about it. Their hatred, to hear them,
is implacable, and were nothing to turn up to miti-
gate their fate "they would all desert their country
and doom themselves to perpetual exile rather than
see the humiliation of their fellow-citizens, and
swell the triumph of their oppressors.' I have,
however, no great faith in the eternity of either
love or hatred, and, although, no doubt, many of
the Louisville merchants have been ruined by the

interruption of the Mississippi trade, and by the
annihilation of the Southern markets, yet I believe

the land has too great an attraction for its natives,
and offers them too ample resources, for any great
number to be driven to the desperate measure of
self-banishment.

The Government of the United States has offered

to buy from loyal landowners in Maryland all such
slaves as may be deemed able to bear arms at the
price of 300 dols. each; these freed men will instantly
be enlisted as soldiers in the coloured regiments. I
wish you could hear the comments of these Ken-
tuckians on that decree. " What !" they say, " was
it not enough to welcome a fugitive slave, to put a
musket in his hand, and place him in the ranks with
white combatants ? The runaway slave deserved at
least some credit for daring aspiration. He might
have been desirous to show himself worthy of free-
dommorthy to strike a blow for his own emancipation,
forlthe redemption of his fellow-bondsmen ; but to
buy a slave, a willing, contented slave, to fight the
battles of freedom—to buy the despised African,
after exhausting the market of the heavy Germans,
of the riotous Irish, of the riff-raff of all Europe—
is that What was to be expected -of 20,000,000 of
freemen engaged in war against less than 7,000,000
or 8,000,000, after three years of boasted victories,
after a struggle in which the material means of the
stronger party were said to be multiplied, while
the weaker party was described as utterly worn out,
as on the eve of a final and general collapse ?" For
their own part, whatever may have been asserted to
the contrary, the Southerners will not avail them-
selves of their Degrees, slave or free, in their war
with their former brethren. They will arm the
negro, not with sword or musket, but only with the
spade or the currycomb, dooming him to those
menial offices in time of war for which alone they
deemed him fit in days of peace. ,

ADVERTlSEMENT.]—Avoidampecluießillaersr:y,s they
Deliciousalways
vate
nheal t
chronic complaints,
Restoring Revalenta Arabica Food, whichessativieems
,firfetysttoirmineg
s
its cost in other remedies, invariably cur
perfect digestion, strong nerves, soundlungs, healthy liver,
pure blood, refreshing sleep, functional regularity, and energy
to the most disordered or enfeebled. We extractafew
out
of t
of 60,000 Cures :—Cure No. 58,216 of the Marchioness
RI-than, Paris, of a liver complaint, wasting away for seven
o
Years, debility, with a nervous palpitation all over, bad
digestion, constant sleeplessness, the most intolerable nervous
agitation, and dreadfully low spirited.—Cure No. 1,771. Lord
Stuart de Decies, Lord Lieut. of Waterford, of many years'
fYsPepsia.—No. 49,83 q. " Fifty years' indescribable acony
firaotmulednY:PePsia' nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation,
37, B.Bllls, elekness, and vomiting.—Maria Jolly."
—Cure No. 16,270. Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley, Surrey, of
thirty years' diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver derange
runt, and partial deafness.—Cure No. 47,121. Miss Elizabeth
Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indigestion, gatherings, low
spirits, and nervous fancies._Cure No. 54,616. The Rev. Jas
T. Campbell, Fakenham, Norfolk "of indigestion and torpi•
dity or the liver, which had resistei all medical treatment."
In tins, 1 M. is. 9d. ; 21b., 46. 66 ; 51h 11s. ; 121 b., 225. ; ]4lb
a4Olsse.—Fßeartrnryltat
nl fla ritriy asaonn ; and dCo.
all Grocers and Chemists in, No. 77,1te:,,,,,t_street, London ;
every town of the United King tom.