The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-17 00:00:00

Grant near Oxford, in Mississippi,
which is threat-
ening Vicksburg. It was fully expected that Gen.
Bragg would be defeated, but time was the great
desideratum in order to enable Gen. Johnston to
mature his preparations at a point further South
which it is not advisable at present to mention, and
to take that prominent part in the Western cam-
paign which he is expected to assume before many
weeks have flown. The battle of December
31 seems, judging by the destruction of Federal
officers announced in the Northern journals, to
have been one of the most sanguinary of the war.
The results of that day's fighting were the capture
by the Confederates of 4,000 prisoners, 25 pieces
of artillery, and the destruction of six more, and
simultaneously the cavalry of Generals Wheeler and
Wharton was engaged in destroying long waggon
trains belonging to the Federals, and inflicting upon
them a loss which, in that devastated and inacces-
sible country, may be pronounced irreparable. Upon
the first day of the New Year the battle was re-
sumed, and again it is believed here that victory
inclined to the Confederate side, and that a strong
position of the Federals which resisted all attacks
upon the 31st of December was abandoned by them
upon the following day. But it was found by Gene-
ral Bragg that the Federal forces had only fallen
back a short way and had got behind intrenchments,
and that, moreover, they had been heavily reintorced.
His own army was in no condition, after two days
of severe fighting against a greatly superior force,to
resume operations, and in compliance (as is here
said) with the instructions of General Johnston,
General Bragg fell back upon a strong position at
Shellyville, leaving his enemy's army shattered and
decimated, according to Northern accounts, to an
extent far exceeding the anticipations entertained
here at the time when the battle began.

It cannot be denied that such a battle as that at
Murfreesborough is, at this moment, a great gain
to the Confederates. It is probable that both
armies are so weakened and exhausted that neither
of them will be able to resume operations for many
weeks. In the meantime General Grant must pro-
ceed in his aggressive movements upon Vicksburg
without any assistance from General Rosecrans.
The great anxiety of the moment is whether that
heroic little city will be able to hold out if attacked
simultaneously by General Grant's land force and
by a flotilla on the river. There is, it is true, some-
where in the neighbourhood of Jackson a Confede-
rate force, the nucleus of that army which General
Johnston is hereafter to command. But it is pos-
sible that it may have to fall back before the large
force commanded by Gen. Grant, which is estimated
at 60,000 men, and which is reported to have been,
or to be about to be, joined by General M'Clernand's
army, loosely estimated at 30,000 more. Evidently
the struggle for the possession of the Mississippi is
destined this winter and next spring to be fiercely
contested. It is incontestable that if the spring
breaks and finds the river from Vicksburg to Port
Hudson still in the hands of the Confederates, the
North-West, which is already grumbling, will grow
intolerant of the further duration of the war, and
will make the best terms it can with the power
which commands the key to the Mississippi River.
It is hoped by the North that the capture of Vicks-
burg and Port Hudson will reopen navigation be-
tween St. Louis and New Orleans. Nothing is, in
my opinion, further from the troth. A few six-
pounders placed on any of the numerous bluffs along
the river would effectually bar the passage of every
trading vessel, and disappoint the commercial as-
pirations of St. Louis and Cincinnati. But the bisec-
tion of the Confederacy which would result if that
great aorta of this continent, the Mississippi River,
was throughout its whole length controlled by the
Federals, would be a heavy blow to the Govern-
ment at Richmond ; and with this fact in view the
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fact that one of the highest military authorities upon
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fended by 15,000 men against any possible attack,
by whatever number of assailants it may be con-
ducted, upon its land side.

The President has returned from his long tour in
the West and South, looking decidedly better than
when I last saw him. He is in excellent spirits
at the prospects of the Confederate armies both
in the East and West, and responded to a sere-
nade in his honour upon his return to Richmond
with that quiet dignity which seems never to desert
him. The following words employed by Mr.
Davis on the occasion in question, and addressed to
his fellow-citizens, seem to me so appropriate that I
cannot forbear quoting them here :

" You have shown yourselves to be in no respect degene-
rate sons of your fathers. You have fought mighty battles,
and your deeds of valour will live among the richest
triumphs of Time's ample page. It is true you have a cause
which binds you together more firmly than your fathers.
They fought to be free from the usurpation of the British
Crown, but they fought against a manly foe. You fight
against the offseourings of the entire earth. Men who were
bound to you by the compact which they and their fathers
had entered into to secure to you and your posterity for ever
net only the rights enunciated in the Declaration of hide-
pendence, but also those which Virginia, when she acceded
to the Federation of the United States, plainly and wisely
reserved for herself, now come to you with their bonds
steeped in blood, robbing the widow, destroying houses and
property, warring against non-combatants, seizing the gray-
haired father and plunging him into a dungeon because he
refuses to be a traitor to the principles of his fathers and
the land that gave him birth. Every crime that could
characterize the conduct of demons has marked the course
of the invader. The Northern frontier of Virginia hasbeen
ruthlessly desolated, the people deprived of their means of
subsistence, their household property destroyed, and every
indignity and outrage which a merciless and ingenious foe
could invent inflicted, without regard to age, sex, or conditon.
They have murdered prisoners of war, they have plundered
the defenceless, and exhausted their malignant ingenuity to
bring the deepest destitution upon those whose only offence
is that their husbands and sons are fighting for their homes
and their liberties. Every crime, from sacking and burning
defenceless and unoffending towns to the stealing of silver
forks, has marked their shameless career. In New Orleans
General Butler has exerted himself to earn the execrations
of the civilised world, and now returns with his dishonours
thick upon him to receive the plaudits of the only people
on earth that does not blush to think he wears the human
form. . . Do they hope to reconstruct the Union by
striking at everything which is dear to man? To such a
depth of disgrace and infamy have they fallen that were
the question proposed to you whether you would combine
with Yankees or hymnas, I trust there is not one Virginian
but would respond, ' Give me the hymnas
War is an evil in every form, but it has sometimes its pal-
liating circumstances. This is a new Government, formed
of independent States, each jealous of its own sovereignty.
It is necessary and advantageous that it should be tried in
the severe crucible in which we are being tested, in order
to weld us together. The enjoyments and comforts we
have been forced to renounce, the long agony of anxiety we
have endured, the unceasing labours we have undergone,
the glory which we have conjointly secured, have combined
to make us a band of brothers, and may we be united and
harmonious for evermore. When peace and prosperity re-
turn, may we go on assisting each other to developo the
great political principles upon which our Government is
based, and the boundless natural resources which have been
committed to our keeping. To an appreciation of the deep
significance of the former we are at length awakening. In
the latter direction we are displaying unexampled energy.
Our mines have been made to yield long-neglected wealth;
our manufactories start up as if by magic. lam not blind
to the increasing power of our enemy, but mark that our
own has been proportionably far greater, untilhlatese
the future nothing to mar our attainment of that
indepen-
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tenses President Davis" style of speech, found an
echo in the breast of every listener. But, though
the of this mightiest of struggles for inde-
pendence cannot be far distant, it would seem
that there are likely to be troubled times be-
fore the haven is reached. A fierce contest for
the possession of the Mississippi Valley must
be fought out to a decision, General Burnside's