The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-23 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Jan. 10.

The failure of the attack upon Fort Fisher and
the defences of Wilmington has led to one impor-
tant and unexpected result. It has ended the mili-
tary career of General Butler. Pending an oppor-
tunity which will, doubtless, in due time be found
or made to appoint him to such purely administra-
tive functions as he exercised at New Orleans, and
which it was the earnest desire of his party that he
should exercise at New York, the disgraced Major-
General has been ordered to report himself at
Lowell, his home in Massachusetts, there to medi-
tate at leisure on the mutability of fortune and the
t
ingratitude of Republics, and to await, with what
patience
been
temporarily he may command, the passing of the
eclipse in which his fame and usefulness have
temporarily shrouded.
Though there is, and will b. e, much rejoicing on
the fall of Gen. Butler,-.there is too great a sense of
justice in the community not to admit that he has
been unfairly treated ; that if the naval and mili-
tary attack on Fort Fisher was to have been simul-
taneous, the blame of disobedience and consequent
failure ought to rest upon Admiral Porter, who
commenced his part of the operations without
waiting for the arrival of
.the troops. But Porter
was in no one's way. He was not a politician ; he
was not the darling of the Abolition party—he had
not been nominated by the Loyal League and the
Rev. Mr. Beecher for the Presidency ; he had not
made a host of enemies in every quarter, and he
was not, as Butler, an amateur in the business of
arms, and consequently distasteful to the regularly-
educated and trained members of the profession.
Therefore Porter, the really guilty person, if there
were one guilt in the matter, has been let alone,
and Butler made to play the penalty of his own
unpopularity and of another man's transgression.
But, though some people are found to deplore the
result, none are surprised at it. The mass of the
people had long ago come to the conclusion that
Butler's true position is not in the field, but at
the desk, and he is by far too able and valuable,
as well as too unscrupulous, a public servant to be
left in permanent obscurity.
The expedition against Wilmington is to be im-
mediately renewed, with Gen. Ord in command of
Butler's corps, and with a largely increased military
force to 'co-operate from the rear. In this city on
Sunday last-and yesterday great numbers of soldiers,
looking sorely fatigued, dirty, haggard, unkempt,
and travel-worn, were seen to arrive in regiments
and detachments by railways, and to march through
the streets for embarcation on board tra*ports
waiting in the bay and harbour to receive them. In
answer to inquiries, they said they belonged to the
army of the Tennessee under General Thomas, but
whither bound no one knew except the officer in
command. It appears, although the New York press
has not been permitted to publish the facts, lest in-
formation should thereby be conveyed to the enemy,
that these troops, spared for the purpose from the
main army of Gen. Thomas, are to land at Beaufort,
or some other part of the shore of North Carolina,
and having effected a junction with the Federal
army at Newberne, under Gen. Terry, are thence to
march on Wilmington, and attack the city in the
rear, while Admiral Porter, assisted by a larger
force than that commanded by Butler, and this
time under the charge of a fighting' officer, is to at-
tack Fort Fisher and the other maritime defences
that guard the entrances of the Wilmington river.
It is expected that the city will be unable to resist
so formidable an assault, and that it will fall a cer-
tain, though possibly not an easy prey to its assail-
ants, and that the pride of the North will receive
the greatest gratification next to the capture of
Richmond which it at this moment desires, the clos-
ing up of the last port open to the intercourse of
the South with Europe.
Congress is busying itself with the discussion of
the abolition of slavery, by legal amendment of the
Constitution, thereby confessing, what all the world,
except the fanatics of abolition, knew perfectly well,
that Mr. Lincoln's proclathations and edicts to that
effect were nugatory and invalid, and, unsupported
by force of arms, of no more value than waste
paper. But the deliberations of Congress to this end
excite but little interest. The all but certainty that
the South will arm and free its able-bodied slaves,
and the possibility, or at least the chance, that the
European Powers will be thereby induced to recog-
nise the Confederacy, occupies the attention of men
of all parties. Those who know the South best be-
lieve most implicitly that both people and leaders are
willing, •if not anxious, to make the experiment.
Those who know little or nothing of the South, and
who think that the Union is a feaqh as dear to
Southern as it is to Northern superstition, cherish
the delusion that there is a great Unionist party in
the " rebellious" States, which is silenced and in-
timidated by the Southern President and the armies
which he controls, and that there only needs
another great victory of the Northern arms—such
as that expected at Wilmington—or, pending the
preparations necessary to achieve it, an offer
of everything that the South can desire, short
of independence, to induce both army and the
people to submit to a reconstruction of the Union.
To all assertions that there is no Union party in the
South ; that the opposition to the Government or
the measures of Mr. Jefferson Davis, however vio-
lent it may appear, is nothing but the natural op-
position in which all constitutional nations indulge,
and must not be mistaken for treason to the cause,
however exacerbated ill-fortune may make it, these
patriots turn a deaf ear. Their belief in the Union,
as superior to all other considerations, and advan-
tages, and blessings, amounts to a fanaticism, and
might almost be dignified with the name of a reli-
gion. No adverse circumstances shake their faith in
the holy thing. The more unattainable it appears the
more fondly and reverentially they cling to it, and
that anyone, except an Englishman, or other preju-
diced foreigner, should imagine that it has perished
irretrievably seems to their minds to be madness
in the many and crime in the few. As these ideolo-
gists form so large a portion of the American people,
it is not surprising that some of them should at
every supposed favourable moment for the ad-
vocacy of their views obtain possession of /Mr. Lin-
coln's attention, and that to get rid of their impor-
tunity, if he do not share their opinions, he should
allow them to try their " 'prentice hands" on the
great art and mystery of pacification. All previous
attempts of the kind have been signal failures. Mr.
Lincoln has never deputed any person of known
character and responsibility to discover the real sen-
timents of the Southern Government, and such fifth
rate envoys as he has either permitted or encou-
raged, but never authoritatively authorised, to visit
the South for this purpose have invariably returned
with the same answer—that the South desired inde-
pendence and would fight for it to the last extre-
mity. Nothing daunted, however, by these discom-
fitures, and nursing the baseless hope that the war
has created no such bitterness of hate as to prevent
'cecueiliation, and that the South is really at its
wit's end, and in the position of a drowning man
who will accept life, if he would accept no other fa-
-your, at the hands of an enemy,
Blair, the Nestorl,l% Francis P.
re-
newed his "or of American Whig policy,
attempt - has
foiled in this p Pt to reach Richmond. He was
refusal of thetirP°so:ti,more than a week ago by the
Th President to missionaries of the kinde receive any
whdo were not expressly de-
puted by Mr. Lincoln, an.
newed the effort under ore favourable auspices,
now, it appears, re-
though under what exact
to the public. It is idle to tionß
speculatech upon the re-
not known
suit. Mr. Blair may reach mond or he may
not ; he may, be empowered to make a
proposition, or he may go for a Northern "a fid e
rathern than for a Southern one, and have c PurPose,
ave calenlat d
upon failure before he set out, and courted it e
a view to ulterior objects of his own and Mr. with
Lin-
coin's party. But if he returns with the news that
the South is ready to negotiate for re-union, he will
return with the most astounding and incredible in-
telligence of our time.

The possible European recognition of Mr. Lin-
coln on the 4th of March as President only of
those States by whose vote he was re-elected is the
fear that sets this singular machinery in motion,
and that seems to render necessary an effort of some
kind to learn from the South whether it is irrevoca-