The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-02 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Oct. 21,

The perplexities of Diogenes in search of an ho-
nest man bid fair to be equalled by those of Presi-
dent Lincoln in search of a General. Up to this
time the American has scarcely been more success-
ful than the Greek. If the ancient cynic happened
poet has since declared to be
to light upon what the
" the noblest work of God," he had not sagacity
enough to know the treasure by its outward appear-
ance ; and if Mr. Lincoln in the course of his long
inquiry has had for a while in his possession the
greatly coveted preserver of the Union, he has not
known either how to prize or how to use him.
MtClellan was the nearest approach to an effective
commander that Mr. Lincoln's search has elicited;
and up to the recent occupation of Chattanooga it
seemed as if Gen. Rosencranz was the very man in
pursuit of whom the President was perambulating
his dominions. But Rosencranz having, like his pre-
decessors, failed in accomplishing the impossible,
has, like his predecessors, been hurled from the pe-
destal by the ruthless iconoclasts of the Cabinet. It
is Mr. Lincoln's fault or misfortune, as it has been
that of all his countrymen, to honour the fighting
general more than the contriving one ; to set the
sword above the spade; and to think more highly
of mere personal valour than of military science and
of far reaching strategy. Hence Gen. Rosencranz,
who was the idol of the day as long as
people ex-
pected that he would win a decisive victory, no
sooner lost a battle, which was at best a drawn
game, if so much as that, than the confidence placed
in him melted away. The public Was
dailyinformed
for a whole month that the position of Rosencranz
at Chattanooga was impregnable, that he had been
or certainly would be, largely reinforced, and that
issuing forth in his irresistible might he would, in
his own time, scatter the legions of Bragg like chaffbefore the wind. break the neck of the rebellion,
and, effecting with Gen. Meade a movement upon
P
Richmond, would capture President Davis and all
his Cabinet, and bring them to Washington to
be hanged
on gibbets as high as that of Haman.
Bat people were slow to credit what it was evident
that neither Mr. Lincoln nor Mr. Stanton believed ;
and no one has been surprised by the announcement
made yesterday that General Rosencranz has been
deprived of the command of the Army of the Cum-
berland, or that General Thomas has been appointed
in his place. No one knows anything of the mili-
tary qualities of this General. He rescued the Army
of the Cumberland from total destruction by his ob-
stinate valour, when General Rosencranz was asleep
in Chattanooga, unsuspicious of danger, and for that
reason alone he has been chosen to command it.
But whether he can lead and manage an army as
well as he can fight at the head of a division is a
problem which the future must solve. Those who
remember the promotion of Generals Pope, Burn-
side, and Hooker for the same reason, and the igno-
minous failures which they severally made, have no
great faith that "fighting Thomas" will prove better
than," fighting Hooker," and a growing feeling of
distrust prevails that the greediness of the Cabinet
for speedy victory—desired on political more than
on military grounds—prevents the President from
knowing a good general when he has found him.
General Grant, though not in immediate command
of the Army of the Cumberland, is to have control
over the whole South-western campaign, so that
General Thomas will in effect act in subordination
to him, and do the fighting, not so much to achieve
victory over the Confederates before Chattanooga as
to withdraw the Federal force from a position in the
highest degree critical. As the Americans worship
the rising but never the setting sun, General Grant
is the present object of their exaggerated homage.
He and he only is declared to be the real and in-
disputable Napoleon of the North, a man who in
taking Vicksburg achieved a far greater and more
glorious deed than Bonaparte ever accomplished ;
and who exceeds the French commander in genius
and fortune as much as Federal America exceeds
France in length, breadth, and area. Gen. Grant
will doubtless share the fate of his predecessors.
For a brief space every military officer who comes
to tae surface of political favour is held to be the
biggest man in the world—a man who by his mighty
deeds is to eclipse the fame of Cm3ar, Charles XII ,
Marlborough, Wellington, and Napoleon, and to
prove to the unwilling and envious nations of effete
old Europe that they must send to America if they
wish to learn the art of war and how to kill the
greatest possible number of soldiers in the least pos-
sible time and to the least possible purpose. So for
awhile Gen. Grant will sun himself in the rays of
Presidential and popular favour. If he defeat Gen.
Bragg thoroughly and- finally he will rise to still
higher appreciation, and become a candidate for the
Presidency. Having reached that point the star of
his glory will have culminated. He will be in Mr.
Lincoln's way, and in that of Mr. Chase, of Mr.
Stanton, of Gen. Halleck, and of a host of political
enemies, and will speedily be unmade by the hand
which made him. Then the President will take his
lantern once more, and prowl about the camps,
keen •eyed and jocose, in search of that unattainable
general who is always coming, but never comes, and
of that self-sacrificing hero, who will consent only
to achieve such an amount of success in the field as
will raeke him tolerable to an impatient people,
'Without making himself obnoxious to the President
to ease, or the countless Presidents in posse, who hate
by
anticipation every man in military or civil life
ho
threatens to become too pecular and too
P°werful.
But esi,,
but of an Lincoln is not only in search of a general,
that it was unwise He has learnt from experience
in Mr J.:lass:l" in him, as he thought it cruel
to the battle-field to drive unwilling conscripts
pen." Without
"'"st like bullocks to the slaughter
actuallyzrt abandoning the design of
Northern
impressing the
rnu
Southern wars,
cern youth to serve in his
palatable measure ads a ing to hold that un-
vsord in terrorem over the
heads of the ablebodied
males
of the North and
West, he has announced by proclamation that he
will give the voluntary
s ate
arealts week in January,
e more trial. He
requires 300,000 men by the
tiai bounty
1864, to whom he offers the
Ts
his,
f money of
100 dole. and advance pay.us
course, will
not be the sole inducement held out ;
forp t i
vate▪
ndi-
vid u ils contracts,
he libe-
rality of the cities and towns, and of
growing rich out of is certai▪ n to
increase that sum by public subscriptions to what-
ever amount may
become necessary to purchase Irish-
Germans. It cannot be sumen and pposed that it
urchase Americans,for •
wi 1 be necessary to p . . 't Would
patriotism to
be a libellous denial of their suppose
that any one of them would take the dirty money of
in D is duty in the hour or
the State as a bribe for do in sr
his country's peril. Should volunteering be not
sufficiently brisk in the interval, a conscription will
again be tried, and, although Mr. Lincoln does not
say as much in his proclamation, it will probably
be a conscription after the fashion of the Prussian
Landsturm, in which every ablebodied man of the
fighting age will be compelled to serve without right
of exemption. The proclamation, though only three
days old, has already had a remarkable effect
upon the Republican journals. Three months ago
they were all loud in praise of the draught as
the fairest and most equitable mode of raising
an army. Bat as Mr. Lincoln has changed his
°Pinions, so also have they. It was one of the
affences of Mr. a an i V ll d" gham which brought upon
his head the condemnation of General Burnside
first, of Its. Lincoln second, and afterwards of
the whole IS
military
conscription
party, that he denounced a
as alien to the spirit of Re-
publican iibexty, It was, until new light broke
upon the Administration,
one of the main charges
brought against the Democratic t par y and the if copperheads" that they
" thatterasonably,"maintained"disloyally," if not
if the armies of the
Union could not be reple •
nished by volunteers
there
was an end of the Union, inasmuch
procurable, if
which was moreas conseripts,
than doubtful were
the worst possible material for soldiers in any
and especially in a civil war, between
men
nof thrwa,
e
same race and language. But now a new face has
the matter by all the f • .1
been put upon friends and
Administration. In a constitutional
organs of the Ad
the King can do no wrong, because
countryhe acts
through responsible Ministers, who may be made to
pay the penalty for his misdeeds. But in this coun-
try (for the present) the President can neither do

wrong nor think wrongly, in.the estimation of the
war faction. The constitutional fiction of other
nations does not screen him as chief m,gistrate
from the responsibility of his actions, but such a
divinity hedges him in the minds of 11 the sup-
porters of the Government, that s held as
incapable of saying a foolish thing a Charles IL,
but more fortunate than he, in never doing a wrong
one. When he supports a consciption, his devoted
followers never weary of praising his wisdom When
he declares a conscription to be needless, they repeat
his words with delighted sympathy and every one is
lost in wonder at his sagacity. After all, they say,
voluntary service is not only the cheapest but the
best defence of nations ; and the Copperheads were
in this respect not so wrong as we thought them.
Meanwhile the Copperheads chuckle. The war
Democrats as well as the peace Democrats are
agreed that the supply of fighting Americans is
exhausted, and that unless the Irish and the
Germans come largely to the rescue,
volunteers
itwillnot
in
possible to raise a hundred
the time specified. The demand for labour is ex-
cessive. There are no honest, hard-working men
who cannot make more money at work than at war.
The rowdies who rushed so jauntily into the field
two years and a half ago have had their day, and
have either been killed off or limp about the streets,
the maimed remembraucers of the strife; or having
escaped wounds and fever, are too much disgusted
with their military experience to renew it at Mr.
Lincoln's call. The adventurous patriots
thought they could subdue the South in three
months, and rushed to arms at the first insult to the
flag at Fort Sumter, are either in their graves or
sadder and wiser living men. The " plug-uglies"
are for the South. The " Bowery boys" are indif-
ferent to " glory." The fact is, let political parti-
sanship disguise it as it may, the effervescence of
American patriotism has subsided. The illusion is
dulled. It was a great and glorious thing, under
old Gen. Scott, to conquer Mexico in three months;
but not to conquer the South in three years is an-
other kind of business, which has no charms for the
imagination of the wild and reckless spirits who
originally plunged into the strife.
Governor Seymour has been the first State func-
tionary to reply to the President's call. In a pro-
clamation to the people of New York, dated yester-
day, at Albany, he has done his best to encourage
present enlistments and to discourage a future con-
scription. He draws but a gloomy picture of the
state of public affairs—a picture that in a Republi.
can Governor would be described as faithful, but
which in a Democratic one is certain to be held
as a factious exaggeration of the facts. He
says that the defenders of the national capital
are menaced by a superior force ; that the Army
of the Cumberland is imperilled, and that the
military operations of the Government are de-
layed by the want of adequate military power,
and are threatened with serious military disaster.
However much Mr. Seymour may be abused for
the confession, it was the part of true patriotism to
make it. General Meade's army does not exceed
50,000 men, and though the numbers of General
Lee's are not known, it is probable, as the latter
has chosen to assume the offensive, and Meade deemed
it prudent to retreat before him, that he has the
superiority of force. The army of the Cumberland,
cooped up in Chattanooga for the last 30 days, with
provisions not calculated to hold out for more than
a month, must either be relieved, fight its way out,
or surrender. But Governor Seymour sees in noon
of these things a reason for the conscription. He
thinks, or, at all events, he says that voluntary effort
will provide the armies necessary for the safety of
the Republic, and denounces the conscription as a
system which unavoidably inflicts unequal burdens
on society, causes great distress and injury to indi-
viduals, and is more hurtful to the whole commu-
nity than the equalised cost and sacrifices of volun-
teering. The document does not satisfy the Govern-
ment, and is all the more distasteful to the Repub-
licans because it is so cautiously worded as to give
no handle to the charge of " disloyalty," which is
already growled against it by the watch-dogs of the
party.

Mr. Seward desires just now to encourage ami-
cable sentiments towards Great Britain. The speech
of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie has put him in good
humour ; and the hint has gone forth from Washing-
ton to the Ministerial press in other cities to indulge
for the present in no more attacks against England
or Englishmen. It is not to be said that the British
Government is " afraid" of Federal vengeance if Mr.
Laird's rams are prevented from leaving the Mersey;
but only that Lord Russell, with that desire to
do justice which is his chief characteristic, has at
last seen the error of his ways in shutting his eyes
against the misdeeds of greedy shipbuilders and
Confederate " pirates," and has resolved to be more
watchful for the future, lest so great a calamity
should happen to the world as war between the two
branches of the Anglo-Saxon family and the reduc-
tion of Great Britain to the rank of a second or
third-rate Power. But the hint is not kindly or
generally taken, and in this city especially the An-
glophobia excited by the presence of the Russian
fleet breaks out in all sorts of odd ways and 1111-
proper places. The last manifestation was at the
municipal dinner given to the Russian officers yester-
day evening—a dinner which appears to have been
very greatly mismanaged as regards the invitations
sent out, and which were almost exclusively confined
to the Aldermen and Common Councilmen and their
immediate friends and retainers. A reverend gentle
man named Beole—peaceful as a Christian should be
whenever he mentioned Russia, and as warlike as a
Christian should not be whenever he mentioned
England—said in the course of a speech which his
friends declared to be an oration, " that America
and Russia clasped hands across the ocean, and the
breadth of England's isle was no impediment to
their embrace." The sentiment elicited such rounds
of applause as to give the cue to the temper of the
meeting to all the succeeding speakers. One of them,
the Hon. Dudley Field, brother of Mr. Cyrus Field,
of the Atlantic Telegraph, in responding to the toast
of " Neutrality," purposely introduced into the list
to afford an opportunity for the display of the anti-
British rancour that fills the heart of America, ex-
patiated at great length upon the " false" neutrality
of Great Britain and France, and especially of the
former. He declared that" Americans would never
forget it ; and, more than this," he said, warming
with his subject, " the man of this generation,
who have smarted under these wrongs, will not rest
until some of them are righted. We see the ground
fresh with graves, half of which would never have
been opened but for the countenance which England
and France have given to the rebellion ; and whether
it shall be procured from their apprehension of the
e.?osequencee, or from their sense of justice, repara-
tion must yet be made, or the seed which has been
sown in these three years will ripen into an iron
malreZiti(i,f futureT war, of which no man can foresee
wards the
this outburethe most rapturous applause followed
B:f.unreasoning spite—as unseemly to-
been made
dinner-table, as theman officers, who ought not to have
recipientse
t for such acerbities at a
Powers of Eeroi was unjust towards the two great
feted so much ins'teilild° have done so little and suf-
41p.l.orable war. The Russian
officers are said to be
discover that
in the true sense of
the word, and to
they have been duped
and made tools of; and
instiltnutall the dinners, fes-
that-
no in the popu-
tivities, and celebrations
their honour
the concealed object was
greater
against Great Britain ne such
than the avowed
one, and that had there been
d friendship would have
been
exuberance
01afrezmaigngderate
been displayed
towards Russia.
As a proof that the Russian Admiral has
made aware at last that he and his countrymen have
endured too much of this ill-bred persecution, he
has
stipulated that in the tour to the Falls of Niagara,
to which he and a hundred fellow officers have been
invited by the directors of the Hudson River Steam_
boat Company, of the New York Central and Erie
Railway, and on which he is to start the day after
to-morrow, there shall be no speech-makiag, and
"
lest Yankee oratoro should prove irrepressible, it
has been wisely resolved by the projectors of the
excursion that no reporters from the American press
shall be present.

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strongest and most delicious imported. Agents ill every
town supply it in packets.

ORIGIN OF THE NHOW SCANDAL,

Demoralised as was the official condition of the
Inniskillings when Colonel Crawley assumed the
command of that corps, its social state, according
to the same authority, was if possible worse. Its
officers were incessantly engaged in discreditable
squabbles with each other; their language was
habitually violent and low ; and a " moral and
social" difficulty, which baffled all Col. Crawley's
calm and judicious efforts at arrangement, soon de-
prived him of the support of the married members
of the mess, and laid the foundation of the ill feel-
ing between himself and his paymaster, which ended,
as will be seen, in the professional ruin of Captain
Smales. The nature of this "moral and social"
difficulty has been entirely kept out of sight by the
president and membersof the court-martial at Mhow.
It is, however, absolutely necessary, in order to un-
derstand the merits of the story which the Blue-book
professes to relate, that it should be distinctly indi-
cated, and I will do no more than indicate it, referring
those who may be anxious for further particulars
to the proceedings of the Court of Divorce in May,
1858. When the 6th Dragoons proceeded to India
in that year, several changes occurred among its
officers, and about a year before Colonel Crawley
took command of it a captain and his wife ex-
changed into the regiment from the -- Light
Dragoons, and were cordially received into its so-
ciety. But shortly afterwards it came to be known
that the lady was a divorcée, and that her former
marriage. had been dissolved, according to Lord
Campbell, by whom the operation had been per-
formed, " under circumstances of peculiar
profligacy." This painful disclosure created, as
may be supposed, considerable scandal among the
small European society of the station ; and all the
married officers of the Inniskillings, with the
exception of Colonel Crawley, declined to con-
cede any longer to the lady the local rank which
she had hitherto enjoyed among their wives and
daughters as an honest woman. Colonel Crawley,
it would seem, espoused the divorced lady's cause
with considerable warmth, urging upon his married
officers that they ought to allow " by-gones to be
by-gones and endeavouring to enforce the liberal
doctrine that as long as a male or female Inniskil-
linger conducted himself or herself with propriety
after joining the regiment, no member of the corps
was entitled to inquire into any peccadillos of which
the party might have been previously guilty else-
where. He even went so far as express to his
officers his opinion that if a certain official tin box,
containing old regimental papers, which Colonel
Crawley, with delicate irony, called " Colonel
Shute's legacy," was examined, there were very
few of them whose characters would stand the scru-
tiny. And, finally, Colonel Crawley issued a formal
memorandum, in which he peremptorily ordered
" that the harmony and good feeling which should
always exist between officers of the same corps,
should not be jeopardised by any further allusion
to this moral and social difficulty by any officer
under hie command" (p. 53). The two indviduals
who seem to have resisted most firmly Colonel
Crawley's liberality on the subject of the Seventh
Commandment were, as might have been expected,
the two senior married officers of his regiment, Sur-
geon Turnbull and Paymaster Smales. From the
date of the memorandum which has just been
quoted, all friendly intimacy between these two
gentlemen and their commanding officer ceased ;
constant squabbles between the parties are indicated
throughout the evidence recorded in the Blue-book;
and very grave complaints against Messrs. Smales
and Turnbull, on apparently -very trivial grounds,
appear to have been forwarded from time to time
to the superior authorities with varying results.—
Cornhill Magazine for .November.