The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-17 00:00:00

THE WESTERN STATES.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)

CINCINNATI, OHIO, Sept. 30.

Bo3fore I left Louisville, on Saturday last, I was
pos'itively assured that Government had pressed into
au) service of the army 500 railroad cars, a rolling
stock adequate to the conveyance of 25,000 troops.
Si nce I came to Cincinnati, I learnt that several
railway lines had been also secured for exclusively
military purposes. The Government are evidently
straining every nerve to send large reinforcements
to the army of nosencranz at Chattanooga. We are
in all probabili'ty on the eve of a great conflict in
East Tennessee ; most people expect to hear of a
general engagement before the end of the week.
The gamblers of the Stock Exchange at New York
have already endeavoured to anticipate events by
announcing the "surrender of Rosencranz" this very
day--an artifice by which they raised gold to 1431.
Nleanwhile, the reverse of the Army of the Cum-
berland on the 19th and 20th, however far from deci-
sive, has been sufficiently serious to disturb the
equanimity of the authorities at Washington. The
Government is at a loss for new recruits. Bounties
of 300 and even 400 dole, are temptations held out
in vain. President Lincoln sneered at his adversary
for " driving the Southern conscripts into the ranks
like bullocks into the slaughter-pen ;" but the
taunt has been bitterly retorted
will never hear the last of it. The sinews of war are
broken, owing to the incapacity of those who had
the
_ management of it. The Northern soldier
marches under conviction that he is to fall a victim
to the incapacity of his leader. The patriot who
rushed to the field as a volunteer was disgusted by
contact with the hireling who fought by his side ;
the conscript who was pressed into the ranks by the
draught, was indignant at the exemption purchased
by the 300 dots. men, which sent him to the war in one
mass with a pack of venal disreputable substitutes.
The sword girt round the waist of a slave caused
the weapon to drop from the side of the offended
freeman. All these undignified resources are now
exhausted. The draught, the substitutes, the en-
rolled militia, the arming of free negroes, the pur-
chase of black slaves to make soldiers of them, all
have been tried, and all to little purpose. The
Northerners are three to one against the Confede.
rates. These latter are contending no less against
heavy material than numerical odds. Yet the North
is at a loss for soldiers, and will get none henceforth,
unless it resorts to conscription in good earnest, and
46 drives its bullocks into the slaughter pen" by
main force.

Earnest Republicans are sadly put out about it.
I, Who t are all these hundreds and thousands of
hulking fellows hanging about billiard-rooms, lager
beer saloons, and hotel bars for ?" they say. " Be-
hold! a war meeting is announced, and you hear of
50,000 citizens assembling and breathing fire and
vengeance against rascally rebellion; bat call upon
them to fill up the ranks thinned by death, disease,
or desertion, and they are deaf to all entreaty, dead
to all shame." So it is; men are not to be got for
the army for love or money. However popular the
war may be with a certain class of politicians, it has
certainly ceased to be so with fighting men. I re-
peat; it is only justice to acquit the youth of the
Northern division of the Union of lukewarmness in
their country's cause. They have answered the first
call with more than sufficient alacrity. It is the
want of political and strategical ability on the part
of their rulers which has damped their spirits, and
worn out their endurance.

While the issues of this great American civil war
are pending on the banks of the TenuesEee river, a
n o less momentous political contest is about to come
off in this State of Ohio, the results of which will
have no slight weight on the general destinies of the
country. The 12th October has been appointed for
the election of the Governor and other State autho-
rities here, and the choice of a head of the State lies
between the Republican, Mr. Brough, and Mr.
Yallandigham, the leader of the Democratic party,
mow banished beyond the limits of the American
Union, and living in retirement at Windsor in
Western Canada, opposite to Detroit. That same
12th of October will be election day in Pennsylvania
no less than in Ohio, and the turn of New York will
come in the ensuing November. Yet the tug of war,
it is felt on all sides, is to be seen in this western
region, and it is to Ohio that all the inter-States
look up for a casting vote in this long debate be-
tween parties.

It is on account of the great interest attached to
the Ohio election, that I deem it expedient to tarry
in and about Cincinnati till the great day is over,
I have been hitherto endeavouring to spell out and
define in my mind the various cognizances and de-
nominations by which men in this country descend
into the political arena, and think the time has come
when I may lay before the reader all I fancy I know
upon the subject, not only as to the aims and views
of the different parties, but also as to their relative
strength, their chances of victory or defeat.
The broadest distinction between the political men
of the Northern part of the Dis-United States is
that between " Republicans" or supporters of the
Administration, and " Democrats," or opposition
men. The former are divided into Conservative or
Moderate Republicans, and Radicals, or Black Re-
publicans. The Conservatives are Unionmen at
heart ; sticklers for their great country and their
constitution. They think the war should be carried
on to the full restoration of the U •
ni
themselves in duty bound to stand
byon they;th the
o govern-
ment .
ment so long as it is striving
after that
and most essential object ; but, for
primary
r thin the. rest, they
do not go with it through thick andthey pro.
less no tranacendant admiration for Mrin ;
Lincoln and
his Cabinet, disapprove many of their
measures, and
think that many of their decrees andproclamations
should have no greater weight than
so much waste
paper. They must have the Union at all priee,how-
a3ver, if possible, with due acknowledgment of State
rights, with due regard to the interests of the South,
with the least possible violation of the laws an
possible d the
constitution, with the least
prolongation of
this diastrous war—but at any rate, the Union.
Men of this stamp are, on principle, abolitionists,
but ready to put down slavery, or to put up with it
as may best be conducive to the interests of the
Union and the pacification of the country.
The Radical Republicans are anti-slavery men
above all things. They talk a great deal about the
Union, but at the top of all their thoughts is the
They are for war t " the bit
g, everlasting Nigger."
0-
ter end," and shrink from the close of hostilities as
a mad dog dreads and shuns water. They hope by
two or three
years' hard fighting to overrun the
whole South, to lay it waste, to break the chains of
the blacks by utter ruin of the whites, to recolonise
the desolated land, to reorganise the culture of the
soil on the principle of free labour. If this scheme
be feasible they will carry it on so long as the North
has a man or a dollar for the purpose. Were their
aim unattainable and the South strong enough to
tion
übj ug'a ? they would rather
at 8
resist all attempts
let it go; they would rather accept the inevitable
separation than come to terms with slaveholdors,
and be partakers of that iniquity which, as they
think, has been the disgrace of their Republic, and
has now wrought out this terrible war: The men
ent
of this party are staunch to their Government after
G
their Own fashion. They carp and snarl at and
flea fault with it a good deal ; they urge it on
fretfully, rancorously; they damn it for excessive
tenderness and luke warmness, and intimate to it at
every moment that " whoever is not with them is
against them,"

The Democrats are also.g a
classified into several sects
and fraternities, according
they are or declare
themselves more or lersadnecidsed Unionists and peace
'Ten. The only rallyingntpoint among the Republi-
cans is the GovernmeThe oul—
which she Democrats are y subject on
truly
hos-
tility to the Government. They
of one mind is
all think that the
war might and should from the IT,
avoided ; they charge the Governme with hsving
intolerance
any,
precipitance. the country into it by sheer
precipitance. A war begun upon flimsy
pretences,
4
and from vain punctilios, they think, is
noper-
petuated from mere obstinacy, from craveni:nesttinct
of self-preservation, from blind inability to
of a scrape. This war is, in their estimation, the
ruin of the country, physical and moral ruin, politi-
cll and financial destruction. They lay upon the
rulers at Washington all its shocking mismanage_
meat, its awful waste of human life, its ruinous ex-