The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-15 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

___~--

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, JUNE 3.
Will Gen. Grant capture Vicksburg ? Will Gen..
Lee capture Washington ? These are the questions'
that are asked from day to day in all public places,
and that are answered according to the political bias
and hopes of the respondents, rather than according
to any just estimate of the facts and the probabili-
ties. Ten days have now elapsed since Gen. Grant
found it impossible to take the little stronghold of
the Mississippi by storm, and sat down before it to
try and reduce it by the slow and scientific, but to
the Amdricans the very uncongenial operations of a
regular siege. If the Confederates are not short of
provisions—which few believe—the probabilities are
that Gen. Joseph Johnstone, largely reinforced, will
within a few days, or a week at the furthest, com-
pel Gen. Grant to raise the siege and accept battle.
Grant, if defeated, may escape by his gunboats on
the Yazoo and the Mississippi, but the Federal cause
will have received a heavy blow, and the pride of
the Northern people a humiliating corrective. If,
on the other hand, Gen. Johnstone be defeated, the
" beginning of the end" will be no nearer than be-
fere ; new obstructions to the navigation of the
river will be raised by the Confederates, and the
wave of war will roll and dash over other rocks
and impediments, whose position none at this
moment can tell, or even suspect. The balance of
opinion both in New York and Washington is not
hopeful on the .subject. The cup of joy was so
near to the lip when Mr. Lincoln, through an
enthusiastic correspondent, supposed to be wholly
trustworthy and well-informed, notified to the
world 11 days ago that the fall of Vicksburg was
morally certain to occur within a few hours, that
the slip has been more than usually vexatious, and
the disappointment more than usually acute. Nor
as regards the ulterior movements of Gen. Lee
is the feeling much more sanguine. If that
able commander really meditates an attack upon
Washington, and considers himself strong enough
to attempt it, there is a very general impression
that he may succeed, not nnmingled with a hope
among the large classes who are weary of the war,
and utterly incredulous that it ever can be ended
during Mr. Lincoln's term of office, that he will not
only capture Washington, but the President and
his Ministers, and hold them as hostages for the
immediate declaration of an armistice to debate the
conditions of peace and separation.
Since the repulse of General Hooker, the friends
of peace have increased in number and in boldness,
but the addresses penned by the leading Democrats,
and the resolutions that are carried and the speeches
that are made at their public meetings, are with
few exceptions singularly illogical, if not absurd.
Mr. Wall, of New Jersey, and Mr. Benjamin Wood,
of this city, declare for peace, pure and simple, and
for a recognition of the Southern Confederacy if
the Southern people, after an armistice, shall
solemnly reassert by their votes in Convention or
elsewhere their determination to maintain their in-
dependence ; but the bulk of the Democratic party
have not reached that upper plank of the true plat-
form. They stand on a much lower elevation, and
continue, even while they vaunt most loudly their
love of peace and the absolute necessity of securing
it to their bleeding and distracted country, to talk
idly of " their opposition to any terms of compro-
mise that fail to restore the Union and save the
Constitution." How can peace be possible, while
men of influence talk thus ? They virtually admit
that the Government is right in prosecuting the
war, but do not see that they lay themselves open
to the imputation of faction in opposing all the war
measures which the Government deems necessary to
conquer a peace, upon the only terms which they
themselves consider imperative. The great peace
meeting to be held this evening at the Cooper In-
stitute will decide whether the Democratic party,
or any large section of it, will continue much longer
to stultify itself in a manner so flagrant.
The case of Mr. Vallandigham continues to be a
thorn in the side of the Administration. Almost
universally condemned as the conduct of General
Burnside has been, Mr. Lincoln had not the pene-
tration to discover that his blundering dragoon and
his servile judge were both in error, or the tact or
grace to rectify their mistakes. The Confederate
Government has displayed more wisdom, and while
its treatment of the honest and fearless exile has
been consistent with its own dignity, the disposition
it has made of him will very greatly embarrass Mr.
Lincoln. Refusing to, admit that the Confederate
States were a penal settlement, to which the Wash-
ington Government could transport either its martyrs
or its criminals, or to allow Mr. Vallandigham to
remain in the South unless he would take the oath
of allegiance, the Confederate authorities have re-
ceived him with marked kindness, and instead of ex-
truding him forcibly from their soil by the way in
which he came, and so transferring him to the dun-
geons of Fort Warren, they have, it appears, given
him permission to proceed to Charleston, Savannah,
or Mobile, with the understanding that he will leave,
the country by whichever of those ports he may
find most convenient. By this means Mr. Yellen-
digham will have little or no difficulty in running
the bloekade and making his way to Nassau or
Havannah, where he can decide at his leisure
whether he will return to his own country by way
of New York, or whether he will proceed to Canada
via Halifax. Were he bold enough to land at New
York, the Democratic party would give him a recep-
tion which would cast into the shade all the ovations
of the war, and Mr. Horatio Seymour—who de-
nounced the arrest in such eloquent and emphatic
terms as would have rendered him also liable to
seizure in the dead of night, and trial by court-
martial, if he were not Governor of a powerful State
and Commander-in-Chief of its army—would doubt-
less justify the welcome by his words, if he did not
grace it with his presence. This is the course re-
coaimended by such of the advanced Democrats as
love the Union mach, but who love liberty and the
Constitution still more ; and which would eitherwith
compel the Federal Government to join issue
the authorities of a loyal State that has more largely
than any other supported the war with men, money,
and credit, or forego once and for ever the high-
handed illegal gets of military power that have done
so much to bring it into discredit and disfavour.
Oa the other hand, were Mr. Vallandigham to avoid
New York and take refuge on British territory,
within a stone's throw of the flourishirg city o: De-
troit, which has direct railway communication
he
of
about 200 miles with his own home at Dayton,
would place himself in constant communication with
t... 111 friends in his native State ; and not all the mi-
"ln' power at the command of General Burnside
could Prevent the Democratic party from nominat-
ing him for Governor,no and carrying the election
by a large if t unanimous vote—unless, indeed,
the FederalAdministration were insane enough to
declare Ohio in a state of
siege, and prevent any
election until the conclusion of the war. Considered
under any aspect the case of Mr. Vallandigham is a
critical ore for the character no less than for the
comfort of Mr. Lincoln, smfeariircaton bliebemrteym.o-
rab,e for ever in the history of bids
At the peace meeting which is to be held in this
city this evening, under the auspices of that wing
of the Democratic party which ha:.; tardily declared
itself in favour of an armistice, the outrage upon
main
Vallandigham will, in all probability, form the main
staple of the oratory and te chief inspiration or she
On Monday consihderable anxiety was felt
orators.
by timid people in consequence of a report industri•
Wool, under orders from
ous;y circulated that Gen. o
Washin;ton, would statin troops at the doors o!
of the hell to
the Cooper Institute and in the body
But
intimidate the speakers. all fear of a breach
of the peace has subsided. cely anybody,,bet so mealy New
lieves that the Government
Scar
"o unless it deli-
York, wilatever it might do in Ohi
a,
s an excuse for
berately wished to provoke oatrage,
Statende
ur
the foregone conclusion of placing this
the operation of martial law. But this
• is an amount
of factuity of which its most violent opponents do
not yet suspect it ; not because its desires do not
point in that direction, but because the bulk of the
labouring classes are opposed to the war, and to the
conscription, and because the Governor is not a
Ministerialist or a Republican, but a thorough-going
Democrat, jealous of State Rights, and determined
at all hazards to maintain
the independence, is cer-
t `din. The threat, though
unofficial and probably

unwarranted, has had the effect of putting the
origi4tora. of On meeting upon their, guard, and
of inducing three our of four of those who tend to
be present to arms themselves with concealed
weapons, in order to be ready for all co ingencies.
It is a fact, useless for the Govern;a to conceal
from itself, that there is electricity in e some-
thing like that which preceded the French revolu-
tion of 1848. The people of the North have made
up their minds that, come what may, they will not ,
yield tile constitutional right of public meeting and
free speech to discuss grievances. At the meeting
held at the city of Newark, in the adjoining State
of New Jersey, on Saturday last, a body of soldiers
with fixed bayonets marched up the main street and
took up a position on the left of the grand stand.
The comments of the crowd were loud and defiant;
and when a body of citizens from the rural districts
bearing a white flag inscribed with the name of
Vallandigham" surrounded with a laurel wreath
endeavoured to pierce through the crowd, and
were opposed by the soldiers, acting, it is to be pre-
sumed, in obed'ence to orders, there was imminent
danger of a collision and a deplorable loss of life.
The Sheriff of the county was upon the spot, and,
acting with great promptitude, he sought out the
military commandant, informed him that the Civil
power was adequate to preserve the peace, but that
if, contrary to law and propriety, he persisted in
keeping his soldiery in the crowd to insult the
citizens, met in conformity to ancient usage and
undoubted right of free discussion, the com-
mandant would be responsible for the bloodshed
that might ensue, and that the Sheriff would
do his best to prevent it by calling out the Militia.
The remonstrance had unexpected success. The
soldiers were withdrawn, and the proceedings ter.
minated quietly. On Monday a similar meeting,
convened to express the sentiments of the Demo-
cracy and people of Philadelphia on the illegal trial
and arbitrary sentence of Mr. Vallandigham, was
attended by 20,000 (some accounts say 40,000)
people in Independence-square; and, although the
soldiery did not make their appearance, they were
in readiness in the immediate neighbourhood, each
man provided with several rounds of ammunition
and a day's rations. The speakers, suspicious of
danger, were all armed. These are ugly symptoms,
and the Government at Washington will be criminal
if it despise them.
President Lincoln seems to have become a con-
vert to the views of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
and Mr. Wendell Phillips, that "God and the
negro" are to save the Republic—if it is to be
saved either by Divine or human agencies. Volun-
teering has ceased ; bounty money attracts none but
a few Irish and German immigrants; the enrolment
of names for the conscription which may never, per-
haps, be enforced, and certainly not in the State or
city of New York, leads to disturbance in places of
public resort, which shows how odious in the sight
of the labouring classes is compulsory military ser-
vice ; and the armies already in the field are melting
away like ice in the summer sun. What can Mr.
Lincoln do, under the circumstances, but take the
advice of Messrs. Beecher and Phillips and the
" war-Christians" generally, who maintain that
negroes will make better, or, at all events, more
willing soldiers than Irishmen, Germans, or white
Americans? The fiat has accordingly gone forth
from Washington to Hilton Head, to New Orleans,
to Cincinnati, to Nashville, to all points where there
are Federal officers in command, to strain every nerve
to induce " contrabands" and free negroes to take
service in defence of the Government that protects
them. If persuasion fails, some of the Federal
Generals resort to force to compel the negroes to
perform military duty, and hunt runaways who
have no stomach for the fight with as much pertina-
city and cruelty as slaveowners were formerly
accustomed to display in hunting those who pre-
ferred liberty to bondage. Governor Andrew, of
Massachusetts, has made himself conspicuous in
this matter, and has attracted within the bounds of
his little Commonwealth all the able-bodied young
negroes whom his influence and that of his friends
and coadjutors could reach. On Friday last the
54th Massachusetts Volunteers—the first negro
regiment that has ever been completed—was re-

viewed by the Governor on Boston-common, pre
___

paratory to its departure for South Carolina. The
lecturers, preachers, teachers, and strong-minded
spinsters for which that intellectual but narrow-
minded and bigoted city is famous, attended in large
numbers upon the occasion and greeted the regiment
with enthusiastic applause. In bran new uniforms,
splendidly equipped, with the stars and stripes
carried before them, and preceded by a full band of
coloured musicians, the regiment, after being re-
viewed by Air. Andrew, made a triumphal proces-
sion through the streets to the port, where they

embarked on board the steamer which was to con.

vey them to Hilton Head. Massachusetts loves
the negro theoretically, but practically places him
under social ban and excommunication. It is, there-
fore, hinted by the cynical that there is much more
joy over the departure of the dark warriors than
there-will- be on their return, should any of them
be so fortunate as to escape the datgera of
the field and the gallows, and so ill-advised as
to attempt to settle in Boston when the war is
over. On the following day a deputation from New
York, entertaining the views of Mr. Beecher and
Governor Andrew on this subject, waited upon the
President at Washington, to urged upon him the
immediate necessity of raising at least 10,000 negro
soldiers. They were introduced •to the President
and Mr. Secretary Chase by Mr. Charles Sumner,
and met with a cordial reception. Mr. Lincoln
declared, " That he would gladly receive into the
service " not merely 10,000 but 10 times 10,000
" coloured troops." Re expressed at the same time
his determination to protect all who enlisted, and to
consider every black soldier taken captive by the
rebels as equivalent in all respects to a white sol-
di,r captured by the Federal armies. "He had,"
he said, "a confident expectation that they would
be of essential service in bringing the war to a
close; and thought that the command of such troops
would afford ecope for the highest ambition." The
main object of the deputation was to counsel the
President to offer the command of tha negro army
to General Fremont. Mr. Lincoln promised to do
so, and hoped with all his heart that General Fre-
mont would accept it.
How successful this marshalling of the negroes
will be, and what effect it will have on the existing
armies of the republic, remains:to be seen. From
all present indications it does not appear likely that
as many es 10,000 men will be raised ; and the
failure of all the efforts of General Hunter (who,
next to General Fremont, is the most zealous friend
of the negro soldier whom the war has produced)
ro induce the swarming " contrabands" around
Hilton Head to abandon the notion that the Federal
Government owes them a subsistence anct that they
owe the Federal Government nothing in return, cr
to raise even a couple of regiments among them, is
ominous of similar nnsuccess in other regions less
fortunately situated. Nor does the enlistment of
the negroes, whether successful or unsucessful,
recommend itself highly to the white men
who have undertaken the fighting part of
the war. Among the non-fighting bellige-
rents, who make money in their stores and
counting-houses out of the needs of the army,
there is, it is true, a strong disposition to accept
negro aid as better than none. In proportion as
the white armies diminish, their objections against
black armies grow fine by degrees, till they disap-
pweharo aairte°g4hceorn. tEraveetonrtshaonsed
nsauttilveers-, owo
rnhAmL p
ricaauss.
sionately
attached to the Union, but not so frantic
in their devotion
as to shoulder the rifle in its be-
half, are rapidly getting rid of their prejudice
against the African soldier.
thNot so the Irish regi-
ments—whose antipathy to
in their native Erin—
bursts savagely forth
unsuspected
few months' residence on this side of theAtafter a
Adjutant-General Thomas, a new convert tlanemtic.
Beecher's faith, that the negro is to save the Repub-
lic, lately made a speech to the Ninetieth Illinois
Volunteers, composed almost wholly of Irishraen,
in which he informed them that he had been au-
thorised by the President to organise negro regi.
ments wherever he went, that the negroes made
excePent soldiers, and that the President's new
policy in relation to the black race, in which he (the
Adjutant-General) entirely concurred, would be the
salvation of the country. In conclusion, he called

upon the men to give three cheers for the " Presi-
dent and the negro." Not a cheer was elicited in
"PIY. "Every man, in the regiment," says an eye-
witnEss, "seemed for a moment to lose the power of
speech and motion." The major in command, hoping
to extricate them from an embarrassing dilemma,
called for three cheers for the Union. Instantly the
caps went up into the air, and there was a loud
and lusty cheer, followed by " a tiger" (one cheer
more). But this did not satisfy the Adjutant-
General, who again peremptorily demanded three
cheers for the negroes. The men were silent as
before, and were ultimately dismissed with a severe
reprimand, and ordered to be brought up again in a
week. It was intimated to them by the General
that if at the end of that time they would not cheer
for the negroes they would all be placed under arrest,
and tried for mutiny and disobedience of orders !

Under circumstances like these it would be sanguine
for Mr. Beecher, Mr. Sumner, and Governor An-
drew, to say nothing of the President, even if they
raised a very large negro army, to expect to employ
it to much advantage on the same battlefield with
the Celtic soldiers who have hitherto borne the
brunt of the war, Ten thousand negroes, under a
good white General—though not perhaps under
Fremont—might be made a formidable weapon in
the invasion of the South, and might, as Mr. Lin-
coln intimates, be the intrument by which some
great Northern ambition might snatch famine, if
not power, out of the forthcoming anarchy that
threatens to inguif the republic. But whether the
fame could be snatched without the same penalty
as that paid by John Brown, of Of swattamie, is the
problem that such a general would have to solve,
and the prospect, or at least the possibility, of which
might not, perhaps, prove very attractive to a man
like Fremont.

NEW ZEALAND.

A letter dated Dunedin, Otago, April, 18, says :—The

"Native question," that horrible incubus of this colony, is
again attracting lively interest. Here in the southern por-
tion of the Middle Island, with as sturdy a population of
Britons as can be found on the globe, pushing and striving
to establish a great and flourishing province—with a Maori
war and its direct risks no more likely than that the people
of Skye or Mull will besiege London—we are forced to
divert attention from our own affairs, and to watch the in-
scrutable policy of Sir Geerge Grey towards the reinstate-
ment of the Taranaki settlers, or to " settle" some other
disputed block of land, and to curse the fate that makes the
welfare of,Englishmen subservient in the eyes of our gene-
ral government to the attempt to convert the refractory
natives into bad subjects of the Crown. Because of the
" difficulty" on thi, score, our interests are postponed,
our money squandered, and our progress checked,
by a Government located in the extreme corner of the
North Island, and for all practical purposes as far removed
from us as is New York from London. A cry for "separa-
tion" has been raised, and it must grow stronger, until a
petition respectful but uncompromising will be presented to
her Majesty, praying that we may be allowed something
like a fair and rational system of government, if not for the
Middle Island, then, for this famed province of Otago. To
the latter point things will no doubt come, for the other
provinces of this island are likely to be too much actuated
by jealousy of Otago, and her inevitable preponderance, to
join in a demand for a Middle Island Government; and
you will assuredly hear in England, from this time forward,
a "damnable iteration" of this idea—Otago must be of and
in itself, a distinct dependency, with its own government,
presided over by a governor appointed by the Crown.
The separation question has been made the most pro-
minent topic in the election of the Superintendent of the
Province which has just taken place—the superinten-
dent being elected by a constituency of nearly 2,000, who
are also entitled to vote for members of the General Assem-
bly and the Principal Council ; who holds office for four
years, unless like a prime minister at home he feels com-
pelled to resign by the strength of the opposition party in
the Council; and who possesses restricted administrative
powers, delegated by the Governor, under the Constitution
Act.

Our Customs Revenue, for 1861, was only £69,737, out of
a total of £260,863 for the whole colony ; but last year it was
£167,079, out of £399,272; the revenue for the last quarter
of the Sear being £57,869, out of £118,525 " Our" Cus-
toms Revenue comes naturally enough from the pen, but
the phrase is incorrect. Five eighths of the whole goes to
the general Government, who spend what they like of it,
and return what may be left, proportionably to the dif-
ferent provinces. In this way Otago gave nearer £BO,OOO

than £75,000 to the general Government last year ; and it
is highly probable that this year the contribution will be
at least £130,000. This is a dear price for general obstruc-
tiveness. The gross revenue of this province exceeds consi-

derably that derived by the general government from all the
provinces, by all the means of money•getting at its com-
mand. Our exports during 1862 amounted to £1,745,959;
the total for the whole colony being £2,421,841—0r more

than two-thirds of the total from this one province. In 1861
our imports amounted to £859,733 out of a total for the co-
lony of £2,493,811; but, in 1862, when the total was in-
creased to £4,626,091, our proportion was over £2,100,000.
During the last quarter of a year our figures were £622,104,
against £1,331,178 for the whole colony; so that, in imports
as in everything else, Otago is rapidly becoming as impor-
tant to the rest of the world as the whole of the other New
Zealand provinces lumped together.
Sir George Grey, as we learn from accounts from the
north, has at last begun to act. Temporising expedients
he has tried to an extent which has sickened even those
who originally advocated such a policy. His Excel-
lency's idea seems to be that the natives are at last suffi-
ciently divided from the lapse of time since the last war, to
warrant his moving again ; and that by a display of force,
from the use of which he will abstain until absolutely forced
to be hostile, he may be able to reinstate the Taranaki
settlers.
Early in March, Sir George Grey started from Auckland
for Taranaki, accompanied by Gen. Cameron, C. 8., and

the Colonial Secretary and Native Minister (Mcssrs.
Domett and Dillon Bell). He was most coldly received by
the settlers, to a deputation from whet°, he afterwards

granted an interview. It resulted in their submitting a

series of very pertinent questions as to his Excellency's
intentions, both as to dealing with the natives and as
to the disposal of the L 200,000 voted long ago by the
General Assembly as compensation for the dispos-
sessed. His Honour took time to consider, and has
not yet replied, But he began to act by ordering the
military in garrison at New Plymouth to take possession
of Waireka Hill, which had been abandoned since the
war, and had recently been claimed as conquered land by
the fighting chief of Wirimu Kingi. Possession was taken,
and by the 17th March a stockade had been erected. About
300 men, under Colonel Warre, also took up a position on
Wilkinson's farm, Warieka, which is the southern
boundary of the Omuta block. Then an interview was
granted to two representatives of the King natives, but no..
thing came of it except Maori bounce. Men and munitions
have since been sent from Manukau to Taranaki. The
force includes 100 men of the Royal Artillery, under
Captain Mercer, who have been mounted as irregular
cavalry. A Colonial Defence Corps has been formed to
co-operate with the artillery, and has been placed under the
command of Col. Nixon, an old Auckland settler. The 70th
Regiment, with the exception of a depot, is at Taranaki, as
are the headquarters of the 57th, and part of the 65th. Two
or three stockades and redoubts have been constructed ; and
the military are road making in a country whore the natives
have said that they would not allow such a thing to be done.
Although there is as yet no new of any hostilities at
Taranaki, there is news of a very unsatisfactory kind from
the same neighbourhood. The Waikatos, the most power-

ful tribe of Maoris, occupy country between Taranaki and
England. At Kohekohe, in the Lower Waikato, his Ex-
cellency had ordered that there should be built a (native)
courthouse, police station, and school. Operations had been
begun, when in the latter part of March 200 natives appeared
and took possession of the ground and works. There was
no attempt made to injure the workmen; but the timber,
&c., was rafted away down the river; and the natives have
declared that they went have a court house, for they dont
want anything to do with the English. Four days after-
wards (on the 24th), another project of his Excellency's
came to grief in the same district. The king natives have
a newspaper of their own, the Sokol, and as it is made
rather a formidable instrument of disaffection, Sir George
sought to counteract its influence by having another jour-
nal in Maori, conducted by Government officials. So the
Pihozhoi ffloketnoke was started, under a Mr. Gorat, but on
the 24th March, during Eis absence, the place was broken

into, the press broken, the type removed, the letter-box
and its contents stolen, and a threat made to burn all the
debris. In all these Maori pranks the English take sides,
and the newspaper accounts are tinge,' accordingly. They
are most contradictory as to the instigators and the object
of this destruction of property; but there can be no doubt
that it was a game of the Kingites, the chief object being

to get rid of Mr. Gorst and his paper. The Ring men
claim credit for preventing the fire ; and it is alleged that

the great Wirimu and his sister have been " profoundly
grieved" by the outrage, and have personally endeavoured
to get the stolen property restored. Mr. Gorst has refused
to leave the place without the consent of the Governor,
and the gentle savages have allowed him three weeks
,grace to get it. Both these events, whether connected
with the King movement or not show the spirit of restless-
ness and impatience by which the Maori are just now in-
fluenced. They are protesting that they do not want and
will not have schools of British magistrates amongst
ha_ta;•TtiheY are said to feel that contact with the white skins
al,l;,v:ah.lde:te:etruced:
othilotubiotsf wthh:irchratear
autenddteodbteolitehveedtehmatortahleisirataiaoln-
with the Ring
sal-
vation I
recurring to their old habits.
movement,gesmentioned are, or are not, connected
George Grey's work more instigatedacid:l6.7l
believe that they indicate
The goldfields are still
by its leaders, many
itoifoanecwohmichltwahillmake Sir
yielding moat satisfactorily,mt The