The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 24, 1863.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—There are few who in cold blood, and
without any exciting motive to overcome the natu-
ral aversion to danger, would wish to go through
the excitements and the perils of a great battle.
But what is a great battle, with all its tumult, its
smoke, and its carnage, compared with the morning
that succeeds it ? The excitement is gone, the
burning courage which hurled men upon mortal
dangers, of the existence of which they were scarcely
conscious, is chilled. War has lost all those exter-
nal ornaments which, if they do not make ambition
virtue, conceal and ennoble the dreadful work of
carnage, and the battlefield appears what it really
is—a human shambles. Squalid and hideous, full
of agonising and piteous entreaties from men who
yesterday dreamt not of either giving or asking for
mercy, lull of death and slow lingering agony
worse than death, who can read without a shudder
the description given by our correspondent of the
battlefield of Fredericksburg, on which the wounded
were doomed to lie for three long days untended,
uncared for, a prey to the thirst that fever engen-
ders, shivering in the cold dews of night, and swel-
tering in the hot sun of noon, because the Federal
commander could not bring himself at first to ask
from his enemy leave to remove them ? What can
be more mournful than the sound of those voices
repeating, in tones that grew fainter and fainter,
the name and number of their regiment, as if de-
spairing of all human succour, unless they could
summon one of their comrades to their assistance ?
We read these things and shudder, but we require
no such lesson as every day affords, in some quarter
or another of the United States, against the folly and
wickedness of civil war. We only wish the narra-
tives which appear in our columns could find entrance
into the newspapers of the North. There it is only
read that so many have been killed and so many have
been wounded, These are abstract figures, which
excite no sympathy or pity, and leave those who
hear them without any clear conception of the
unutterable misery which they indicate. People
who would shrink in horror and dismay from the
spectacle of a single individual suffering the least of
the horrors which thousands endured after the battle
of Fredericksburg sum up the loss with indifference
when it is expressed to them only through numerals.
The sight of that hill-side at Fredericksburg might
well induce the most fiery zealot of the Northern
tribune, pulpit, or printing-press to reconsider the
whole question between North and South, and to
ask himself what prospect this war affords which
can compensate for the extraordinary misery it has
thus wantonly called into existence. Is this the
manner in which the North means to consummate
the re-entrance of the South into the Union ? Are
these the memories which are to bring back alienated
friends, and heal the wounds which Civil Discord
has left behind her ? We fear that there is nothing
in the tone of the American people to give us any
very confident hope that the miseries of the nation
are as yet drawing to an end. All the ordinary
motives that can act upon mankind have been tried,
and tried upon them in vain. The ruin of a flour-
ishing commerce has threatened a people who used
to be considered as among those most devoted to
the acquisition of money of any nation on the face
of, the glebe ; but a currency morbidly abundant,
and the power of investing it as soon as issued in
lucrative Government contracts, or in a thousand
other ways which the necessities of this hard time
points out, seem to have stifled in the breast of the
Americans all anxiety es to their finances. The
prospect of retaining power on the one aide, and the
fear of losing it by a premature and ill-concerted
declaration of opinion on the other, have made the
Republicans firm in the prosecution of the war,
and the Democrats unwilling to advocate with
sufficient vigour the propriety of an armistice
with the view to a general peace. If any one
hoped that the Democrats, who are as yet
irresponsible for the war, would avail them-
selves of the recent elections to speak their minds
freely and openly, we fear he is doomed, for some
time at least, to be disappointed. The more the
Union vanishes out of the sight of all reasonable
men, the more do the two parties of the State vie
with each other in their frantic promises to renew
it. Governor Seymour can find in the policy of Mr.
Lincoln many things most justly reprehensible, but
the one thing which above all others to an Euro-
pean eye draws down upon the President the repre-
hension of all good men—his resolution to persist
in the war—is now imitated by men who disapprove
the cause of the war, who disapprove the manner in
which it is carried on, and who believe in their
heart of hearts that the only chance to avert the
ruin of their country is to do the very thing that
they are most sedulous in denouncing. Winter,
which used to be looked upon as, for a time at least,
preventing the possibility of hostilities, seems to
have been the signal for renewing them on a scale
at once larger, more bloody, and more bitter than
ever. Where shall we look for an end to this fra-
tricidal madness America will not accept the
remedy from without, nor can she work it out for
herself from within. We are sometimes appealed
to, as if an imperative duty called upon us to join
France in intervention ; but no duty can bind us to
push ourselves into the councils of men who entered
into this war without consulting us, and would see
in any endeavour to put an end to it only provoca-
tion to be treasured up for future use, and a new
ground for an enmity which there is no occasion
for us by any moans to increase. We must be con-
tent to look on yet awhile, and to hope that deli-
verance fur this people, most sorely tried because
most entirely handed over to its own devices, will
come from some quarter of which present circum-
stances afford us no indication.

HERALD.—With a divided state and a failing ex-
chequer, an exhausted army and a dearth of generals,
the Federal Republic of North America is in so crazy
a condition that it would seem as if a few more
shocks of the nature that it has lately experienced
would suffice to crumble it in pieces. TneFederals
are again reported to us by the last mail as getting
worsted on every part of the continent. In some
places they are disgracefully beaten, in others out-
manomvred by an inferior force of the enemy. The
attack on Vicksburg has failed ; in a combined
action by sea and land forces at Texas the Confe-
derates have won a great victory; the North has
sustained a great blow in the state of Mississippi ;
the Federal general has been outwitted in Tennes-
see. If every mail should bring us such tidings we
should not expect that the Northern invaders could
hold out long against such an accumulation of dis-
asters. The Confederates have been so accustomed
to curry all before them on the Mississippi River
that this signal failure with which the close of the
year has been marked must infuse as much spirit
into their enemies as a dozen victories on land. We
confess, however, that we were entirely unprepared
to hear of a great victory of the Confederates at sea,
Galveston Bay, in the remote Gulf state of Teas,
was the scene of the extraordinary achievement
which is recorded in the news of the Hammonia.
The city of Galveston has been taken by the South-
erners. It is situate at the extremity of an island,
' which lies off the great bay of the Galt of Mexico
which goes by the same name. A Federal force
occupied the place; a Federal gun-boat squadron
had possession of the sea. An apparition suddenly
appeared to disturb their equanimity. It was no-
thing less than a fleet of five steamers, which must
have come down the river which falls into the head
of the bay. There were troops on board, and guns
protected the bales of cotton, a defence much lighter
than iron, and under certain circumstances, quite as
efficient. Never was there a more complete or an
easier triumph than that of this audacious little
squadron over the insolent Federal force which held
possession of the gate of Texas. The famous ship the
Harriet Lane, was captured, and her officers and
nearly all her crew had been killed by musketry.
We presume that her shot fell dead from the cotton
bales. The Federal flag ship was blown up, and the
commodore was killed. A part of the fleet was taken,
and the remainder fled to Now Orleans. The Con-
federates, whose fertility of resources excites our
admiration, have disembarked their troops at
Galveston, and are preparing to scour the Gulf
with the Harriet Lane, which is swift and strongly
armed, and capable of eclipsing the fame of the
Alabama. The Monitor sank ignominiously in half
a. gale of wind otiCape Hatteras. The Harriet Lane
has Intl `pith a fate more saticfactory to the Con-

federates, and, if possible, more discouraging to
the North. Our previous impression of the result
of the campaign in Tennessee is very precisely con-
firmed by the latest accounts. It is admitted that
the Federals were worsted by General Bragg in the
battle of Murfreesboro on Dec. 31. We are now
told that the contest was renewed and continued for
three days. During the night of Jan. 3 the Con-
federate army evacuated Murfreesboro, and on the
following morning the Federals took possession of
the place, but they made no attempt to pursue the
enemy until the evening of the 4th. It is thought
in New York that this movement indicates the
failure of Bragg's attack upon Nashville. The New
York Herald, however, admits the great disappoint-
ment that is felt in the North. "If the War De-
partment had been efficient General Bragg's army
would have been destroyed; whereas, after inflict-
ing upon General Rosencranz a loss of 10,000 men
and 30 guns, he retreats more with ►he air of a con-
queror than with evidence of a serious defeat." The
New York grzbune ins:nuates that the retreat of the
Confederates may involve merely a change of opera-
tions. There is no doubt that the Confederate army
retired in perfect order, and unmolested. General
Ewell writes from Chattanoga that all the stores
were saved, and that 4,000 prisoners, 5,000 stand of
arms, and 25 guns, had arrived there on the sth. If
they have found it necessary to retire, they have
done so in the character of victors and bearing with
them the spoils of war. It does not appear that the
bulk of the Confederate army has retired into
Alabama, as at first supposed ; on the contrary
General Bragg is at Shelbyville, only 20 miles south
west from Murfreesboro, on the Duck River, a
branch of the Tennessee. His movements must
depend on the position of the Federal armies of
Grant and Sherman in the state of Mississippi, and
the communications which it is necessary to main-
tain with Johnstone. General Bragg has hitherto
outwitted every Federal general who has been sent
to Tennessee to subdue him, and may be intent on
surprising General Rosencranz by a flank move-
ment which will again place Nashville in danger.