The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-15 00:00:00

AMERICAN NEWS.

Baton Rouge, which has surrendered to the
Federal gunboats, very much, no doubt, as New
Orleans has done, is a place of considerable conse-
quence, situated on the left bank of the river, and
about 120 miles above the latter place. Baton
' Rouge, so called from a red pole that marked the
boundary between the red man's territory and the
acquisitions of the whites in former days, is the
State capital. It contained a United States
arsenal, which was seized by the State, and is the
site of an extensive prison and the State lunatic
asylum, Its political tendencies may be estimated
by the fact that, out of a population furnishing
1,300 voters at the last election, no less than 875
men entered the ranks of the Confederate army
when it took the field, and more than 240 enrolled
themselves as a home guard. The next place of
consequence on the Mississippi is Natchez, and
above that lies Vicksburg. Between Baton Rouge
and New Orleans lie the great plantations belong-
ing to ardent Secessionists, with only one exception
perhaps. Here are the estates of the Mannings and
Wade Hamptons, of South Carolina, of Bringer,
Kenner, Burnside, Duncan, Governor Roman, and
others, vast tracts of sugar fields covered with
costly machinery, and mills for crushing, boiling,
and refining, and negro quarters, all facing the
river in sections, and bounded at the back by
swamps, bayous, and dense forests. These gentle-
men will, no doubt, follow the example of the autho-
rities, and submit to force majeure.
If Gen. Butler is wise—and there are some who
doubt he is—he will keep his men out of the city,
bat, under any circumstances, there must be danger
in the position of any force, naval or military, near
and in such a place as New Orleans, unless they be
maintained in strength. It will be curious to watch
the conduct of the negroes, of whom there must be
some 60,000 or 70,000 in and about the city. Who-
ever they were who expressed joy at the sight of
the " old flag" and were fired upon according to
Commodore Farragut, is tolerably certain they
were not negroes. To them the stars and stripes are
associated only with the extension of slavery, and
the sight of the banner under which they have been
specially oppressed would givelhem no joy. That
there may be thousands of Union men in New
Orleans is likely—just as there are Chartists in Lon-
don and Orleanists and Legitimists in Paris—but
the Mayor expressed in his defiant and courageous
message to the Federal captain the opinions of the
vast bulk of the people and the voice of the prepon-
derating classes in wealth and position. If the in-
habitants of New Orleans all maintain the attitude
assumed by the Mayor and the Council of the city,
it may set the politicians of Washington thinking
on the situation, and may open their eyes more
clearly to the great troubles to come. Men like
Mr. Sumner, who are disposed to admit that, if no
Union sentiment exists in the South, it is impossible
to govern it according to the forms of Republican
Government, should the people refuse to accept the
Federal officers, may discover the task before them
is incapable of accomplishment. Nor is the position
of the Republican party likely to gain strength by
the very events which place the objects it sought
apparently within its grasp. At every fresh vic-
tory there is a defection, and the debates in Congress
recently have revealed the intensity of the flames
which are awaiting the first fissure to leap out in
all their fury. The Confiscation measures proposed
in so many forms, and advocated so zealously, and
resisted with such vehemence, have had no result,
except to exasperate the passions of both sides, and
all the talk about emancipation has ended in en-
abling a few slaveholders in the district of Colum-
bia to sell their slaves at a good price, for the head
money they will receive is a high average as " nig-
gers" go at present.
Fort Macon, as we anticipated, has surrendered,
and the port of Beaufort, North Carolina, is open.
It is strange that there is no news from Savannah,
but, unless the Federals manage things very badly,
that city ought to share the fate of New Orleans.
In that case Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile
would be the only places of consequence in the
hands of the Confederate States along their whole
seaboard.

It must be remembered that there is no cotton
grown near New Orleans. The plantations com-
mence about Natchez, and, as orders have been given
to keep it on the plantations, it is not at all likely
the Federals will get much of it. From Beaufort
we may get some naval stores, and the Federals
may procure some sugar from New Orleans ; but,
out of all the places which have fallen into their
hands, none has yielded any cotton to pay for the
powder burnt in getting it. The new collector of
the port of New Orleans will not have much to do,
according t 3 all appearances. Will the importers
take Confederate money for their goods ?
The military movements of Beauregard are not
known to us, but it is just possible he may have
marched from Corinth upon Memphis to the east in
order to get the support of the flotilla in some grand
coup. If Halleck has anything like 160,000 men,
the position of the Confederate corps becomes to the
last degree dangerous; and the Federal General,
who is a highly trained and scientific soldier (the
author of the best work on soldiering ever written
in America), is not the man to lose the great advan-
tages afforded to him by the possession of such an
enormous force. The Federals are gradually encir-
cling and closing in on the heart and head of the
Secession movement. On the north-east angle of the
Confederacy they have pressed down as far as the
Rappahannock, and have only left to their enemies
the divided allegiance of the James and York
Rivers, and Norfolk, on the seashore of Virginia.
The coast of North Carolina is theirs, except Wil-
mington. They hold all the coast of South Carolina
and of Georgia, except Charleston and Savannah,
and the eastern shores of Florida are open to them
whenever they please. On the Gulf (we presume)
Pensacola only remains to the Confederates—
though nothing has been heard for certain of the
state of affairs there for some time back—and
Mobile, and the profitless coast of Texas. M'Dowell
on the Rappahannock, however, is exhibiting im-
mense caution, or is waiting for some develop-
ment of Banks's movement ; !perhaps, indeed, he
is in observation lest the Confederates, if beaten '
at Yorktown and Richmond, should try a dash
at Washington. M'Clellan is spending golden
hours endeavouring to do what mortal general can-
not
effect—commanding success where he attacks.
Private letters state he has an enormous field and
battering train, and upwards of 110,000 men ; but
there is some idiffi
difficulty is not likely
in finding them, and this
likely to decrease as the army ad-
vances, if ever it does so.
The Washington correspondents of the New York
journals are not trustworthy, for the simple reason
that they are rarely admitted
into any society
where they can obtain info •
rmation, and that they
make the most reckless assertions and surmises, in
order to conceal their ignorance, as they must write
something about every movement Which takes place,
or which they imagine to have occurred. It* M.
Mercier has received instructions to act as mediator
it must be very recently indeed, and so sagacious a
statesmen as the Emperor is not likely to propose
an armistice to the North at the very moment its
hopes of conquest are at th© highoct_ The paper in
which the story of a consultation having taken place
at Washington between the Federal Cabinet and
the foreign diplomatic corps is utterly unworthy of
belief. The paragraph in question is probably fur-
nished by the same person who stated that Lord
Lyons had introduced Captain Semmes, of the Sum-
ter, to Mr. Seward as a British subject, in order to
obtain a passport for him. The Committee of Ways
and Means has reported a vote of £45,000,000 ster-
ling for the army of the United States for the year
1863. But if the war is over then or before it, there
must be another sum of £14,000,000 provided for,
being the bonus or bounty of 100 dols. payable to
each of the 700,000 soldiers in the Federal army the
moment the war is declared to be over. The ten-
dency of public opinion in regard to this army re-