The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-13 00:00:00

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titt o4e;) I‘,,‘ Sa

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1863,

The more closely these more recent events of the
American war come to be looked into, the less
apparent becomes the reason for the sudden exulta-
tion of the Federal multitude headed by their
President. Vicksburg has fallen it is true.
JOHNSTONE has retreated. LEE has withdrawn his
army from Maryland back again across the Poto-
mac. The Confederate Commander-in-Chief has
retired indeed still further southward, baying
passed through one of the convenient gaps of the
Blue Ridge on his road towards Culftpper, where,
assuming a purely defensive position, he finds the
enemy confronting him, though at a respectful dis-
tance enough. MEADE'S army of the Potomac
having returned to the old position held by them
(some time before MEADE assumed the chief command
with such exemplary diffidence) on the line of the
Rappahannock. Granted all this, however, the
result above specified still remains behind, now
that we begin to look through all the hazy
vapouring of the Northerners, that, as Pro-
fessor LONGFELLOW has it, " things are not
what they seem," or at any rate not precisely what
they seemed only as it were but yesterday. General
JOHNSTONE has retreated, but—he has not been
routed. His forces are not victors—but at the very
least they aro not dispersed, being, on the contrary,
held admirably well together. Again, General
GRANT'S successful troops—described so very
recently as outnumbering their antagonists almost
overwhelmingly—turn out, in point of numbers, to
have been very considerably exaggerated. And
since this revision of the Federal statements as to
the relative strength of the forces respectively, at
this juncture, under the banners of GRANT and of
JOHNSTONE, it bas been shrewdly calculated that
the predominance numerically must before much
longer, in thb regular course of events, turn rather
in favour of the Confederate Commander. The antici-
pation, here, resting principally, it should be remem-
bered, upon the all but certainty, as we may call it,
of JOUNSTONE'S at present inadequate force being
nearly doubled by the simple exchange of the
Vicksburg garrison, now upon parole. A judicious
correspondent of one of our contemporaries main-
taining the probability of this " doubling-up" (in a
totally different sense from that intended so
recently by the Federals), this actual doubling-up
of the Confederate force under JOHNSTONE, by
reason simply of the circumstance of there being,
as the writer opportunely remarks, " a very large
number of prisoners dae to the South on account."
Hence, because of these arrears alone in the striking
of the balance, this same anticipated doubling-up
of the Confederates under JOHNSTONE in the
country of the Mississippi.
Westward of that river still remain fully
thirty thousand of the Confederate forces
in arms—biding their time, perpetually on the
alert for their [next opportunity, waiting
for the close of the last deleterious warmth
of the season, waiting for the recruits certain not
to be waited for in vain. Whatever yet has oc-
curred in these recent transactions disadvantage-
ously for the Confederates—Sumter has not fallen,
neither has Savannah, nor yet, again, has Charleston
Charleston was to have fallen for a dead certainty,
and yet Charleston still obdurately holds out. Be-
sides which, turning from isolated positions to the
situation and condition of the main army of the
South under their redoubtable Chief, General LEE
—we hardly know in what terms sufficiently igno-
minious were to be described the most fitly the situa-
tion into which the Confederate Commander-in-
Chief had been driven, and the condition to which
his main army had been reduced. Both of these
gigantic advantages being due, of course,to Northern

prowess, directed by the consummate generalship ol
the new Federal Commander-in-Chief, General
MEADE—at last, as head of the Northern
army, that almost despaired-of desideratum, " the
21itht man in the right place." The demoralisation ol
Laws
forces, the utter discomfiture and craven flight
of that boasted Captain of the South, were words
feebly e=
pressing the actual state of things subse-
quently to the
the
subsequent
of the great battle of Gettysburg,
and
Event hasty re-crossing of the Poto-
mac by th.,
defeated and almost routed Confede-
rates.
wedibie:ording to the Northern flourish of
trumpets h
so to speak, of 1„°_1113' too plainly upon the morrow,
t th
Serenade !
1,..r %lama LINCOLN'S rididiculous
however showed
eoose horribly stubborn things,
on
4u
,
afterwards that again the
New York narratives h
44 been
grossly than ever, (imago, grossly, even more
defeat at Gettysburg was it
appears "tad. General LEE'S
so little of a de-
feat after all, that it turns otie
imply (contrary to custom with him it istrue) to have been
Fas light there was none. Rout, No Victory.
of bin valiant army, were a phrase aim °arty portion
ply ridie
$o fir from anything whatever of that kind k&L ideas,
aving
occurred, in relation to the Confederate troops
under
LEE, those troops, we know now for an
absolute
certainty, have been withdrawn by their coin_
wander quite deliberately, quite calmly, without
haste, or opposition of any kind, taking with them
not only the whole
of the very considerable sup-
plies seized by them while in Maryland, but carry-
ing off scot-free in their train as many as fifty
pieces of the Federal artillery, captured by them
while on the other aide of the Potomac .
Meantime, there is one circumstance related about
the Federals, in regard to their most recent pro-
ceedings in the conduct of this deplorable war,
there is one circumstance so novel and so
cruel of its kind, as to be (we cannot but call it)
nothing less than a most dastardly innovation. A
circumstance, it is, moreover, that has already
twioe of late called for words of the sternest re-

probation. These remarks having reference to the
rominent position in which the negro reginnut2

~__

wer e placed in the assaults made respectively by; the
Fed eral forces, now upon Fort Wagner, now upon
Por Hudson. The unfortunate blacks being obvi-
ous! placed in that conspicuous position, in both those
assat tits, simply for the purpose, it would se em, of
distr• acting the attention of the foe from the advanc-
ing •troops of the North, and of concentrating upon
the unhappy negroes the fire of the beleagured
gam isons! As the correspondent already alluded to,
sigtaing himself S. in the columns of our principal
con temporary, scornfully remarks, "It is something
nevi', in an age like this, to drive white American
conscripts at the bayonet's point to the work of
inveiding and destroying their fellow-countrymen
but, beyond this, it will remain an indelible brand
on the future history of the Northerners that they
could not fight a people of less than a fourth of
of their own numbers without getting negroes to
help them." Remembering what the apologists of
the North affect to regard as the origin of this
miserable war, the course thus pursued by the
North in these two most disgraceful incidents, is
one not an iota less contemptible of its kind than if
the Yankee warriors were upon each occasion
fighting behind the shelter of so many petticoats.

evils, as we are all ready to admit,
If a too active and officionsGoveirtniras
"t
nothatso itsbe
serioustha t is dnroatwaboat
vk
es
questioned that there are verytion
attending an Administra
annoying to
inspection,have t rade
aa
manufacturend
nough is veryass ed by
arconstant
meddlesome laws; to be unable to
h
restricted by
pass from one town to another without wasting
precious hours at the bureaus of indifferent officials;
and we in England are so muck in the habit of
trusting to private enterprise, and of watching with
a jealous eye any nevv assumption of Government
authority, that we seldom complain thP.t our con-
stitutional authorities are doing too little; or, if we
do, we are very ready to accept the usreal stereotyped
reply that it is not desirable for Government to
interfere. But there are cases in which King LOG
is nearly as bad as King STORK, especially if King
LOG refuses to let other people do his work. India
may place defective legislation in the very first rank
of her national drawbacks, and the hopeless view
which so many of her statesmen persist in taking
of her capabilities and prospects has helped much to
retard their development. It is better to be too
sanguine of the fortunes of a nation than not san-
guine enough. In the one case every chance will
be given to the national fortunes, in the other the
gifts of nature are neglected and left unused. The
recent AddressZdelivered by Sir ARTHUR COTTON
to the Calcutta Chamber, shows very clearly how
muck this been the case in our vast East Indian pos-
sessions. The subject of the eminent engineer's
discourse was the connection of irrigation and
navigation with the finances of India, and his re-
velations of the perverse indifference of the Govern-
ment to so wonderful a source of health, plenty,
and capital is really marvellous, The facts he
states are uncontroverted ; the arguments he draws
from them aka clear and logical; the evidence
which supports his views is open to any one's in-
spection, yet year after year the land is left waste,
alternately parched with drought and submerged
by floods, while fever, sickness, and famine prey
upon a population who might be living in health
and plenty on the produce of the land were it once
properly drained and irrigated. Some years ago
Sir ARTHUR COTTON was despatched to visit the
provinces of Cuttack and Pooree, that were endan-
gered. by the changes taking place in the great
rivers; and having seen in Madras how cheaply
and easily districts liable to the double catastrophes
of flood and drought can be raised to proportionate
prosperity and comfort, he drew up a comparison
between Cuttack and Tanjore, showing, he says,
" the comparative results of grievous neglect and
moderate care." His report was of course tossed
aside, disregarded, or, as he says, with well-merited
satire, " The report of a man who was writing the
results of nearly forty years' practical experience,
and who supported his propositions by confirmed
results over a vast extent of country, was submitted
for the decision of a gentleman not quite old enough
to be his son, who had never seen a weir or an im-
proved delta." Another report on the state of
the country between the Hooghly and the
Ganges was tfeitted in a similar manner,
and the City of Palaces has been left to
suffer the ills of bad water, delayed communication,
and a fever-stricken neighbourhood. The scheme
which Sir ARTHUR COTTON proposes by which to
regulate the flow of the mighty Indian rivers is a
very simple and comparatively inexpensive one ; it
is, too, one which Nature herself is the first to faci-
litate. He proposes to construct large tanks in the
upper basins of several rivers in which he has
reason to believe he can store any quantity of water
at a very trifling cost ; and it is important to re-
member that such tanks answer a double purpose by
eupplying water in time of need and in diminishing
the floods in the country below. Those unfamilifir
with the subject are apt, says the engineer, to
suppose that works of great extent are needed to
control floods. But it is generally only the last pool
or two that does the mischief, and a flood seldom
lasts more than a few hours at its height ; so that
a comparatively small body of water detained for a
time will divest it of its dangers. The materials for
the works are ready to our hand, The Soane alone
has water enough for a million acres in the
dry season, besides supplies from other rivers.
The money that is laid out in providing
for the passage of heavy floods through bridges in
the low country, might, says Sir ARTHUR
COTTON
very justly, have been more effectually and satisfac-
torily spent in preventing the floods by storing the
water in the upper country, so that India at this mo-
ment might havehad largestores of water in the upper
basins of every great river, while in the dry season
a fresh and plentiful supply of one of the first ne-
cessaries of life would have been flowing through
the plains now parched and arid, while the demon

of fever would no longer find a potent agent in the

stagnant pools, from which the people are compelled
to drink, and all this without any additional out-

ay ! The greater part of India affords remarkable

'acilities for such a scheme in the natural basins

which only require small gorges to be closed to con

nect them into vast water tanks. As a proof of the

comparative expense of the method proposed and
that now followed, we are told that water can be

,hus stored at the rate of about half a rupee

for one thousand cubic yards ; while at
present it is raised from wells in the drY
season, at a cost of from two to five rupees per
Wising
1,000 cubic yards. The difference between the fer-
which has
properties of fresh water, and that
already percolated the earth must be well known
to
agriculturist. In the plains south of the
the Soane
Ganges, ery
it is found that from a dam thrown across
a line canal can be led on a dead level to
Allahabad, a distance
the mouth of the water
and
south
for the supply of of 170
water miles,
ot
fh uthe
p rGo
av
ni doi
en
sg.
incredible, but can be
to the whole plain west of
The profits resulting from such a cha
easily believed
are almost
y those who
have witnessed the disastrous effects of a "dry sea-
son." As a proof of the value of water in. India,
we learn that a gentleman had a
piece of land vhich
he let at six annas an acre; he dug a well
thirty
feet deep, when he let the same land at six rupees
an &cm Th-a., natzp project is intended to irrig;t4