The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-22 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 22, 1863.

Perhaps the most enormous misstatement yet put
forth by the Northerners may be taken to have
been that indulged in by them in reference to the
abandonment of Fredericksburg by the Confederates
under LEE, and the occupation of the evacuated
town by HOOKER, the latter General tranquilly re-
crossing the Rappahannock with his entire army
for that express purpose. The whole announce-
ment as to these movements being, as we have
known now for the last forty-eight hours in this
country, purely fictitious. General LEE not
having ordered the evacuation of Fredericksburg.
The Southern army not having been withdrawn from
that advanced position. The Federals not having re-
crossed en masse that (for them) hitherto fatal river
of the Rappahannock. And so on throughout the
whole of these extravagantly untrue statements
received from New York here in England only last
week, in all their impudently minute particulars.
A single corps of HOOKER'S army, it turned out
afterwards, had, under a misapprehension of a
really strategic, or it might rather be said, perhaps,
more strictly speaking, a mere sanitary move-
ment on the part of a portion of the Confederate
forces—a single isolated corps of HOOKER'S army
had, in consequence, been thrown across the river :
only to be withdrawn, however, afterwards imme-
diately upon the discovering of the mistake that
had been made, and then only withdrawn after a good
deal of hard fighting, and the actual loss altogether
of some forty men put hors de combat. Again, three
brigades of Federal cavalry and 2,000 infantry
crossed the Rappahannock, a little later on, at Bever-
ley Ford, there to fight the whole of a livelong day
with General STUART'S cavalry, until the latter,
having received a formidable array of infantry rein-
forcements, sent up to his aid from the rear, the
Federal horse and foot had (for once taking their
dead and wounded away with them) to recross the
Rappahannock, hurriedly taking shelter again
upon its further banks. The explanation of all
these little episodical movements on the part of the
opposing forces thus confronting each other, with
the waters of the Rappahannock alone separating
the two armies—the precise explanation of all these
movements, we receive simultaneously with the par-
ticulars of them. The design of the Federal
cavalry and infantry in crossing over the
Rappahannock, simply appears to have been
this—that General LEE'S known project of a new
invasion of Maryland should be frustrated, if pos-
sible, by precisely the expeditionary movement
above particularised. Whether it has been so frus-
trated, the sequel alone can tell. The Federals,
though driven back across the river, still affect
to have accomplished the object with which they
had just before crossed it. Certain it is, however,
that, so far as their pcsition demonstrates anything,
they were not successful, they were virtually re-
pulsed. General LEE not only meanwhile main-
tains his position at the head of a large force
of cavalry at Culpepper Court-house, the
place, so to speak, of his rendezvous, hut
there receiving, according to the latest advices
from that central point of war, such large
reinforcements that the general impression
'as (at New York, remember!) that he, General
LEE, not General Houten., would very shortly
assume the offensive. An impression, that, slightly
indicative, we should say, of failure rather than of
success to the last advance' and immediately after
wards retrograde movement of the Federals, horse
and foot, now to one side, and then back again to the
other side of the Reppahannock
of i
lematters are
thus situated there, in the vicinity \
Fredericksburgs
—far away to the South, at Vicksburg, affairs
described as still remaining very
Touch state are
_the "situation," as the French have it, not being
in any material way changed, the siege itself, in
" progressing." Altogether,
true Yankee phrase,
the dreadful war there in America, a true Ahex-
ANDRINE to the last—" Like a wounded snake,
drags its slow length along."

Mr. LIDDELL on Friday evening called attention
to the state of Greenwich Hospital in a very sug-
gestive speech. The hon. member clearly explained
the causes which led to so much confusion and re-
sulted in such bad management. The double go-
vernment, by which the affairs of the hospital are
arranged, exhibited many glaring defects, namely,
" an absence of responsibility, a conflict of autho-
rity, and a general supineness of action." He also
pointed out the advantages that might have accrued
ad the Government carried out their intentions in
regard to this matter in 1861. In that year an