The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-13 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Feb. 24.
The evacuation of Charleston has been closely
followed by the surrender of Fort Anderson and the
port and city of Wilmington. As the new strategy
of General Lee is to abandon the Atlantic cities and
transfer their garrisons into the interior for the
spring.campaign, Mobile will come next in order.
On its evacuation the Confederacy will be shut out
from Europe on every side, except on the line of the
Rio Grande. The Northern people, as might have
been expected, are in ecstasies of elation at the pro-
spect, and at the remarkable series of successes
which have recently rewarded their efforts by sea
and land. As appetite grows by what it feeds on in
this as in other cases, they are greedy for further
victories, and daily expect to hear that Sherman has
swallowed up Beauregard, and Grant performed the
same feat on the armies of Lee. Yesterday, how-
ever, the rumour came from Philadelphia that Lee
had attacked Grant and defeated him with heavy
loss ; but though it found few to believe it, and has
not been confirmed, the possibility of such an event,
as well as the undoubted peril in which Sherman has
thrust himself by his rapid march through South
Carolina, has prepared the cautious for an unfa-
vourable turn in the wheel of fortune.
At a time such as this, when expectation is con-
centrated upon what Gen. Sherman is doing and on
what he is expected to do, and in the very crisis
and culmination of his career, it is instructive to
dwell for a while upon what such a man has said or
written. It is not often that his utterances find their
way to the public, for he has the rare genius of
silence, and never speaks but to good purpose, or
writes without carefully weighing his words. All
that is known of him tends to prove not only that he
has a sound head, but a good heart. While no
Northern soldier has equalled him in military genius,
if success in daring achievement be accepted as a
test, no statesman or politician in office, or philoso-
pher or preacher out of office, has expressed himself
with half his sense, modesty, and humanity on the
events of the war. He never asserts that the negro
is better than the white man, as some writers and
speakers of the fanatic school of Abolitionists
are constantly doing ; never encourages his country-
men in the delusion that the end of the war is at
hand, or that the Southern people are mere brag-
garts and bullies, as the " Buncombe" orators of the
North are never tired of asserting ; and never main-
tains that the crime of secession is so deadly that
nothing but the devastation of the Southern States,
the extermination of their people, and the re-settle-
ment of the land by the conquerors can atone for it.
Though a warrior, he does not pretend to be a
" War Christian ;" and though carrying fire and
sword before him, he does not believe that fire and
sword are the best agents of civilisation, or that
their employment against men and women of the
same blood and history, and speaking the same lan-
guage as himself, is other them a dire necessity. In
a letter to Mrs. Bowen, of Maryland, dated as far
back as June, 1864, from his head-quarters at
Marietta, and for the first time printed this week,
he gives expression to sentiments wbich reflect the
highest honour on his character both as a Christian
soldier and a wise statesman. "As a nation," he
says, " we (the North) were forced to accept battle;
and that once begun, it has gone on till the war has
assumed proportions at which even we, in the hurly-
burly, sometimes stand aghast. I would not subju-
gate the South in the sense so offensively assumed,
but I would make every citizen of the land obey
the common law, submit to the same that we do ;
no better—our equals, and not our superiors. My
heart bleeds when I see the carnage of battle, the
desolation of homes, the bitter anguish of families ;
but the very moment the men of the South say that,
instead of appealing to war, they should have ap-
pealed [will appeal] to reason, to Congress, to the
courts of law, to religion, and the experience of
history, then will I say, ' Peace ! come back
and resume your proud place as American
citizens, with all your rights and privileges."
This is not the doctrine of the Butlers, the
Sumners, the Chandlers, the Beechers, the Phil-
lipses, and the Loyal Leaguers ; neither is it a doc-
trine which is generally popular, or that General
Sherman himself would be forgiven for teaching had
he not earned by eminent service the right to speak
his mind, even though his sentiments should be in
direct opposition to the passion or prejudice of the
majority. Yet the Southern people, of whom he
speaks so kindly, might ask him, in sorrow, not in
anger, if he has not taken a wrong and partial view
of their case. Ile declares that "On earth, as in
Heaven, man must submit to some arbiter, and
must not throw off his allegiance to his Government
or his God without just reason or cause." George
111. believed that the American colonists had no
just reason to rebel, and the sword decided the
difference of opinion—against the King, and in
favour of the people. General Sherman and the
North but repeat George lll.'s argument without
having George lll.'s excuses of knowing no better,
or of being unguided by the light of any previous
experience.

New York celebrated on the day before yesterday
the 133 d anniversary of the birth of Washington
with somewhat more than customary enthusiasm.
The confirmation of the news of the evacuation of
Charleston came opportunely to give novelty to an
old-fashioned holiday, and the weather being re-
markably genial and beautiful for the season, the
population swarmed into'the streets in unusual
numbers to see the reviews, parades, and proces-
sions organised for the occasion, while the chimes
were rung merrily and guns were fired unmerci-
fully to express the popular joy that a great re-
bellion had been eminently successful more than
three-quarters of a century ago. How many or how
few amid the multitudes who thronged Broadway,
Union-square, the Fifth Avenue, and the Central-
park, devoted a thought to the possible place in
history that would be accorded to another so-called
rebellion, which is now in the agony of final sup-
pression or triumph,"it is useless to inquire. Re-
bellion is only rebellion while it is unsuccessful, and
prosperous treason, as everybody knows, is synony-
mous with patriotism. A large body of the
wealthiest people in the city, men who pay Income-
tax upon annual revenues of hundreds of thousands
of dollars derived from contracts and speculations,
or from countless other modes of making money
which are the concomitants of a plethora of paper
in the hands of adepts and experts, not choosing to
parade the streets, and taking no pleasure in the
ringing of bells or the barbarous noise of artillery,
celebrated Washington's birthday by a public meet-
ing, and the adoption of a string of resolutions.
Neither speeches nor resolutions had much reference
to the hero of the anniversary, but made much more
account of suth living heroes as Sherman and Grant
than of such dead heroes as Washington and his
contemporaries. The first resolution will be con-
sidered a curiosity of argument by all who remem-
ber what these New York millionaires and the
Northern people generally find it convenient to
forget that the Southern people are struggling for
the self-same right that triumphed under Washing-
" Resolved," said these gentlemen, " that the
war to quell rebellion, which now rapidly ap-
proaches its
essen-
tially inevitable conclusion, involves essen-
the principles of self-government, human
freedom, and Christian civilisation." If the meet-
ing had been held at a
Richmond, there is not a
Southern soldier or citizen
who might not conscien-
tiously have cried 14 Ara ll to the assertion. The
resolution went on to say
the United States have abundant" that the people of
cause for congra-
tulation in the knowledge that while successfully
maintaining by force of arms the Government of
their choice" (but not of the choice
of their oppo-
nents) " and the life of the nation" (though accom-
panied by the death of a nation that presumes to
have equal right to live and enjoy itself),'," they are
at the same time effectually asserting the inviolable
doctrine that this continent is for ever devoted to
the cause of liberal institutions and republican Go-
vernment." In other words, these millionares, seeing
as they think an end of the civil war, are so anxious
not to be at peace as to proclaim that they will, as
soon as possible after they have settled their domes-
tic differences, make war against the Emperor Maxi-
milian of Mexico and the Emperor of the French
for having violated an inviolable doctrine. As the

gentlemen are so enamoured of war, it is fairly to
be presumed that they have made, or are making,
money by it, and that they would see will 1 leasure
new wars and complications emerge from the smoul-
dering embers of the old. The same gentlemen held
a second meeting yesterday, and, having subscribed
money for preliminary expenses, sent telegraphic
messages to alrthe principal cities of the Union, in-
cluding San Francisco, to know whether the muni-
cipal authorities would not agree to set the 4th of
March next as a national holyday, and suspend all
business whatever, except the business of rejoicing
over the recent victories, the occupation of Charles-
ton, and the raising of the old flag upon Fort Sum-
ter. The answers were rapidly received, and should
Gen. Sherman or Gen. Grant meet with no reverse
in the interval, it is probable the 4th of March will
be a grand day for spread-eagleism and fireworks.
But considering what events may happen within the
next nine days, the action of the bankers and mer-
chants of New York is, to say the least of it, a little
precipitate.

Contrary to expectation, Mr. Lincoln refused to
commute the sentence of Captain Beall, deputed or
ordered by the Confederate Government to make
war upon the Federals on the Canadian Lakes, and
the unfortunate man was hung this day, within the
confines of the fort upon Governor's Island, in the
Bay of New York. Great efforts were made to in-
duce the President to be merciful in this particular
case, not so much from any sympathy with Captain
Beall as from the fears of the many persons—some
of them high in office and in position—who have
sons or brothers in Confederate prisons, and who
are apprehensive, and probably not without reason,
that the Confederate Government will avenge
what in the South will be looked upon as the
murder of this officer by the execution in the
same ignoble mode of one or more Federal
captives of corresponding military rank. The
President granted a reprieve of a few days to
enable the doomed man to communicate with and
have an interview with his mother, .but the Judge.
Advocate-General was firm in persuading Mr. Lin-
coln to allow the sentence of the law to take its
course, and the luckless soldier was hung, not be-
came he was the leader of a raid in Federal waters,
but because he was a Confederate " spy." It is
loudly proclaimed by the War Party and the Loyal
League that a similar fate awaits Lieut. Burley
and also Lieut. Bennett Young and his companions,
now under trial at Montreal, should the Canadian
Courts decide to deliver them to the Federal autho-
rities under the Extradition Treaty.

Execution of Captain Beall, the Rebel Spy.

The following account of the execution of Capt.
Beall is from the New York Tribune of Feb. 25 :
The execution of the sentence of death upon John Y.
Beall,the rebel spy, recently convicted by court martial,
duly took place on Governor's Island yesterday, the 24th of
February, to which day he had been respited from Satur-
day last, which had been originally fixed as the day of
execution.

Although, according to the terms of the sentence, it was
not to be carried into effect until between the hours of 12
and 2 o'clock p.m., the sight-seers, who were so fortunate
as to procure passes, began to arrive in large numbers at
Governor's Island at an early hour in the morning, and
there was also a considerable throng, who, to judge by ap-
pearance, had managed to pass the guards without creden-
tials. By 12 o'clock upwards of 500 spectators had assembled,
without including soldiers, of whom there were several
hundred. Between the hours of 11 and 12, United States
Marshal Murray proceeded, with a file of soldiers, to the cell
of the condemned in order to convey him to an apartment
less remote from the scaffold, preparatory to the execution,
which it had been determined was to take place shortly
after one o'clock.

Major Cogswell and other officers testified to the coura-
geous bearing of Captain Beall ever since his confinement on
the island. As we entered the cell of the prisoner, in com-
pany with Marshal Murray, a deputy-sheriff, and another
gentleman, we were struck by his singularly cool and con-
fident mien. He was sitting on a chair by a little table
which stood in the middle of the cell, with the black cap of
death already upon his head. Seeing us enter, he imme-
diately arose and said to the Marshal :
"lam at your service. You will oblige me by making
this thing as short as possible."
The Marshal, who had seen him frequently before, did
not at first recognise him, as the black, turban-like, night-
cap, with its long tasseled overlap, somewhat altered his
appearance. lie knew him to be the same, however, as soon
as he spoke, and promised to comply with his request.
Captain Beall was a handsome man ; about sft. sin. in
height, a strong, compactly-built form, light beard and
moustache and yellowish hair, regular features indicative of
culture and intellectual firmness, and a clear brilliant grey
eye ;—these were the physical characteristics of the rebel
spy. There was also a singular freedom and self-possession
in his manner of movement and address.

Following Marshal Murray to the door of his cell, ho
marched between the guards, who were awaiting him to-
ward the designated apartment, heedless of the curious
gaze of the knots of loungers who had gathered to witness
the scene. We forgot to mention that he was also accom-
panied by the Rev. S. IL Weston, Chaplain of the Seventh
Regiment National Guard, who had been his constant com-
panion for several hours previous.

The gallows was erected on a pleasant little knoll of
ground, which sloped gently to the waters of the bay on the
extremity of the island fronting the Narrows. The struc-
ture itself was simple enough. There was no drop ; but a
chair was placed directly under the rope,which ran through
an aperture and along a groove or series of pullies in the
beam above, the other end falling into a rude box, or shanty,
where it had connection with a heavy weight, which the
severing of a subordinate line would bring the noose up,
with a swift jerk, to the top of the gallows-tree. Up and
down, in the interior of the enclosure containing the weight,
paced the man whose business it was to cut the short line at
the signal, and by the action of the falling weight, run up
the outer cord, with its dangling burden of flesh and blood.
He was in fact the hangman of the occasion, a deserter long
confined 9n the island, but who, we understood, was ex-
temporised into an executioner, on the condition that there-
after his own past sins were to be forgiven.
By noon there was a large crowd collected round this
spot, eyeing the structure with a morbid curiosity, and
several platoons of troops were marching and counter-
marching around it, with a full band playing at their head.
Nearly all the Press were represented and stood very near
the scaffold, with Major Bumford, the commandant of the
post, and several other officers belonging on the island. As
the fatal hour drew near the crowds of spectators became so
pressing that a guard was detailed which quickly drove
them back, while the troops wore formed in a hollow square
around the gallows to keep them outside.

Just about one o'clock the guard, with the prisoner and
Mr. Weston in their midst, came ling down the slope, and
the crowd respectfully opened to let them through.
The prisoner walked swiftly, and evidently without fear.
His arms were pinioned by the elbows behind his back,
which induced a slight forward stoop as he walked, but there
was something defiant and free in his gait and bearing.
There was something gracefully romantic in his attire, es-
pecially in the short dark cloak which he wore, falling
theatrically down to his waist and concealing the hempen
twist round his neck, and even his black cap added to this
dramatic effect, being rolled up, turban-like, above his
brows, the baggy end falling on one side and fluttering in
the fresh wind that blew in from the sea. Otherwise, the
prisoner was attired in a grey suit, somewhat tarnished
from his long confinement,
additional evidence of which
was also perceptible in his pallid and somewhat emaciated
features.

We learn, and it is very probable, that the prisoner enter-
tained, almost up to the hour immediately preceding his
death, confident hopes that the execution would not be car-
ried into effect. These hopes probably vanished before he
started on his last brief journey to the gallows—indeed, they
must have done so, for on the way he looked up, gazed
steadily at the sun, which was shining in a clear blue sky
and pouring a flood of effulgence over his pathway to the
grave, and said to Mr. Weston—" How beautiful the sun-
light is ! I never knew what its splendour was till now
when I look upon it for the last time." ,

Arriving at the gallows, the prisoner threw a quick,
curious glance upward, as though he had never seen the
structure before, although it lay fully exposed to his eyes
during the several moments' march from his place of con-
finement. Nevertheless. he seemed perfectly satisfied with
it on closer inspection, and quietly stepped forward under the
rope, while the Adjutant prepared to read the various findings
of the:Court, the order accompanying it, and the death sen-
tence. While this was going on, the quiet, almost cheerful
courage of the prisoner won the respect of all who saw him,
His demeanour was, however, anything but that of a brave ;
it evinced a pure moral courage, an intellectual contempt
for death. His face was pale but not sorrowful, and frequent
smiles played across his lips as he listened to the reading of
the different specifications of which he had been found guilty,
and for which he was there to meet his death. Especially
at the reading of that specification respecting the Lake Erie
Piracy, where he had placed the innocent passengers of the
captured steamer under durance by force of arms, he almost
laughed, as if the reading recalled some incident which had
once particularly amused him. In all of this carelessness,
however, there was only contempt and hardihood, nothing
like_contri lion for tho crimes which he had attempted, and
"Inning like a conviction of the fanaticism or spirit of re-
venge
Immediatelywhich
adf
terimpelled
him.
the
Boner stood up, and the n
reading of the sentence, the pri-
oose round his neck was fastened
to the suspended cord above, leaving a slack of about two
feet. He faced the sea.
On his right stood Marshal
Murray, Major Cogswell,
ho
og,yswel_l
and other officials. On his left
stood Mr.
Weston,
produced a copy 91 tho Episcopal

Liturgy, and read the commendatory prayer therefrom in
solemn tones, the prisoner bending his head reverently, and
evidently listening with profound attention.

At tho conclusion of this ceremony the Deputy-Marshal
approached the prisoner, adjusted the rope, and asked him
if he had anything to say.
The prisoner replied, "Yes ; I protest against the exe-
cution of this sentence. It is absolute murder—brutal mur-
der. I die in the defence and service of my country."
Before the cap was drawn over his eyes, on being asked if
ho wished to say anything further, he said, " No, I beg
you to make haste !"

The signal was then given ; the weight was heard to fall,
the rope was seen to spring high up; and John Y. Beall was
in eternity ; for his neck was immediately broken, and he
probably died in a second. There was a slight convulsion
of the legs, and all motion ceased. The execution took
place at 14 minutes past ono o'clock precisely.
The body was suffered to hang just twenty minutes. It
was then cut down, and, upon examination, the surgeon in
attendance pronounced life extinct. It was then placed in
the coffin awaiting it and borne away, when the crowd
dispersed.
We understand that the corpse was to have been
brought to the city, and there delivered to some friends for
interment.

Two gentlemen from Baltimore, friends of the deceased,
were with him in the morning, and witnessed his execution.
Although there was a natural feeling of commiseration for
the youth, and respect for the valorous bearing of the pri-
soner among the spectators, the general and profounder
sentiment was that ho richly deserved the death he re-
ceived.

A few days before his death the prisoner wrote a sketch of
his life, and, during the early morning preceding his execu-
tion, at his own request, had a photograph likeness taken
of himself.