The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-27 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1863.

The extraordinary intelligence brought to us this
morning by the Persia, and still dropping in upon
us as the day advances, in more or less fragmentary
telegrams, almost looks like the beginning of the
end of that dreadful civil war in North America.
Never among the Americans, with all their odyllic
force, their spirit rappings, and their wondrous
feats with gymnastic upholstery, never yet, we
nay safely aver, have they had brought so vividly,
and undeniably, before them such an astound-
ing instance of a complete turning of the
tables. The biter is there, in truth, bitten, and
bitten too most severely. Diamond has there
assuredly cut diamond. The pursued has fairly
turned at bay, and become himself at last the
pursuer. The Yankee ACT/EON is meeting far worse
than the fate of his but partial prototype. Instead
of being devoured by his own dogs (of
war)—he has been turned upon and is now
being fast followed up (to the death ?) by the
Southern game he had so very confidently set his
cruel heart upon bringing down in a veritable
battu, The Confederate Commander-in-Chief,
having at length fully matured his plans for a new
and more daring development of his already bril-
liantly successful scheme of a campaign,
has boldly crossed the Rappahannock, it
seems, in three places, and carried the war into
the enemy's territory. At the head of an
army of 100,000, including among them 30,000
cavalry, the valiant and hitherto victorious military
chief of the Sontherns, has commenced offensive
operations, in earnest, against the Northern States.
Already the foremost among these stages of advance
have been clearly marked out even in this first mo-
ment, as it were, of the announcement. Foremost
among the foremost, STONEWALL JACKSON'S old
corps, commanded now by General EWELL, is noted
down as advancing, 18,000 strong, through Cul-
pepper, en route for the Shenandoah Valley. The
bare thought of " STONEWALL " JACKSON'S death,
we may be sure, giving a firmer grip to every sword
hilt, and a steadier aim to every rifle-bearing right
hand, in all that dauntless band. Penetrating reso-
lutely beyond Culpepper, EWELL, it seems, without
one instant's unnecessary delay, had attacked MIL-
Rol' at Winchester—carrying Winchester by storm,
and compelling MlLxoy, after spiking his guns, to
retreat in hot haste upon Harpers' Ferry. Not
however, until after MILROY had been intercepted
by the Southerners on the path thither, upon the
Martinsburg Road, from ia hich point he eventually
broke his way through EWELL'S men—reaching his
destination, that is Harper's Ferry, with 2,000 of
his men put hors de combat. Subsequently the on-
ward movements of the Confederates appear to
have been rapid and almost uninterrupted—now to
Hagerstown, in Maryland, now to Greencastle and
Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania. Thence they may
advance either to Harrisburg, to Pittsburg, or to
Baltimore. As a matter of course, the northward
movement beyond the Rappahannock by the whole
southern army under General LEE has necessitated
a retrograde movement of a very decided kind on
the part of the Federals under General HOOKER.
Leaving Falmouth and proceeding with all speed,
ma Dumfries Lithe direction of Fairfax, the Fede-
ral Commandevin.Chief
(notable mainly of late in
Retreats, though
not qui •
te, so notable hitherto, even
in that particular as, let n
3 Bay, either MOREAU or
XENOPHON), General lrlooxaa has caused his army
to abandon both Belle Plaine and Antral& Creek,
selecting Alexandria as the new base
of his now
purely defensive operations. By an
coin-
cidence, the Federals have thus got back
again to
the fatal old Bull Run battle-ground. There
the main army, under HOOKER, Was, accord
ing to our last advices, encamped
ing to our last a
MiL-
ROY having had his men driven back by
EwELL'S corps as far as Harper's Ferry. At
that point, namely at Harper's Ferry, it was that
that very corps, under their beloved and glorious
chief, General STONEWALL JACKSON, took 10,000
of the Federals prisoners, after subjecting them to
a crushing defeat. While, how fatal to the
Northern cause the old battle-ground of Bull
Run, was, all the old world as well as all the new
world knows full well, long since. No
wondar that so astounding a turning
of the tables as all this would clearly
indicate should have created, as we hear it
evidently had created, before our last advices left,
Per the Persia, an extraordinary excitement