The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-25 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(Front the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, March 10.
So much anxiety is felt for General Sherman's
safety [that the Government, the Press, and the
people are reduced to the consolation of declaring
that "no news is good news." Nothing official or
authentic has been heard of him since he quitted
Columbia, and the Richmond papers,:which probably,
know the line of his march—whether it be an ad-
vance or a retreat—confiue themselves to the pro-
mulgation of vague assurances that his doom is
sealed, and that nothing but a precipitate and suc-
cessful retreat towards the sea can save him from a
crushing disaster. General Sheridan has been ope-
rating with partial success in the valley of the She-
nandoah, and has captured a detachment of General
Early's forces, numbering 1,300 men, with eight
pieces of artillery. This feat was magnified by de-
serters into the total rout of Early and 48,000 men ;
and by subsequent reports into the capture of Early
himself. General Grant communicated the grateful
intelligence to Mr. Stanton, and the latter, always
ready to believe in victory, lost no time in taking
the public into his confidence. For 24 hours the
shouts of victory arose from all the cities of the
North, and the praises of the gallant and lucky
Sheridan were on all men's tongues, and filled the
" sensational" columns of all the leading newspa-
pers ; and when after that interval the true state of
the case was made known no one appeared to be
disappointed, or be particularly angry with Mr.
Stanton for giving official currency, not for the first
or hundredthetime, to a gross exaggeration.
There has to-day been a heavy fall in gold, the
came of which has been traced to the receipt of pri-
vate telegrams from Washington, announcing a
" great victory" by General Sherman—the time,
place, and opponent not stated. Military critics
attach no credit to the report, and attribute it en-
tirely to the machinations of a " ring" of specula-
tors whose headquarters are at Washington, but the
scene of whose operations is in New York. The
general public, as the day wore on, became as in-
credulous as the military critics, and gold went up
again from 86 to 88k. One of the causes which
has aided the downward movement of the last few
days has been the publication of extracts from late
Richmond journals, filled with recriminations, at-
tacks, and the gloomiest possible pictures of the
state of affairs in the Confederate capital. Some
of these articles hint at the possibility of the depo-
sition of Mr. Davis, the expulsion of the Confede-
rate Congress, and the investiture of General Lee
with supreme and dictatorial power. The Northern
people believe that all these things are symptoms of
a fast approaching collapse of the Confederacy.
They already see the commencement of a counter
revolution in Richmond, and look upon the approach-
ing elevation of General Lee, of which they enter-
tain no doubt, not as a sign of renewed vigour in the
South, or as any proof of a determination to carry
on the war with greater energy and singleminded-
ness than ever, but as a consequence of Southern
despair. Lee, however, it is known to the Federal
Government, if not to the Federal people, com-
mands an army of nearly 100,000 men, of whom
four-fifths are veterans, and can defy any assault
upon any side of Richmond that Grant may make
with a third of the number. He can consequently
spare a respectable army from the defences of the
capital to reinforce General J. E. Johnstone ; or
despatch it to any other point at which it may seem
more advisable to strike a blow. General Grant
has about 125,000 men—not all veterans of the old
Army of the Potomac, but fully 40,000 of them
recruits, and continually calls upon the Government
to supply him with better men. I learn on good
authority that he is quite convinced that Richmond
is impregnable unless by a combined military and
naval assault, both to be made by a colossal force,
and that he has persuaded the President, Mr.
Stanton, and Mr. Welles to place at his
disposal a strong fleet of gunboats, ironclads,
and Monitors, to be commanded by Admiral Farra-
gut, and force the passage to the James River to
within shelling distance of Richmond. It is calcu-
lated that :the assault will be costly in human life,
but that, if vigorously conducted by the land and
naval forces, it will result in such a splendid victory
as virtually to end the war. At the great inaugu-
ration ball at Washington on Monday evening last,
at which the gallant and joyous Farragut distin-
guished himself as much in the dance as he always
does in battle, he turned to the President, who
said, sotto voce, but loud enough to be overheard by
several persons, "My next dance, Mr. President,
will be at Richmond." Admiral Porter's fleet is, it
appears, to be withdrawn from Wilmington to aug-
ment the force at Admiral Farragut's disposal, and
the grand assault is to be made as soon as it is pos-
sible to organise the details and make all necessary
arrangements.

The painful exhibition made by Vice-President
Johnson on Saturday last, in presence not.only of
the highest dignitaries of the Senate, the Govern-
ment, and the representatives of Foreign Powers,
but of more than a thousand ladies, assembled to
witness themost solemn ceremony of American State
life, continues to excite indignant comment in every
private society and in every newspaper of the coun-
try, except in a few Administration journals which
would willingly conceal the indecency they cannot
but condemn. It is not only the drunkenness of the
Vice-President that is denounced and deplored, but
the vulgarly offensive and brutal manner in which
the drunkenness displayed itself, and which proved
but to palpably that no force of circumstance or
advancement in worldly and political position was
sufficient to raise Andrew Johnson to the rank of a
gentleman. There is an old praverb which says
that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear;
and another that if you put a clean shirt upon a
pig, you waste your linen and do not improve the
pig, both of which have been extensively quoted
since Mr. Johnson courted their application to
himself by his behaviour on an occasion which
should to him, of all men, have been the most
sacred and solemn of his life. He is ex officio
President of the Senate, but as he has seen fit to re-
new the inebriation of Saturday, or rather to per-
petuate it since that time, he has not been able, even
if he have been proposed, to make his appearance in
that body.

The Senate, without reference to his misconduct,
but acting in consequence of it, passed an order on
Monday, prohibiting for the future the sale of any
intoxicating drinks in the refreshment room of the
Capitol, popularly knownas the " Hole in the Wall,"
a piece of legislation which will do nothing to cure
the evil in Mr. Johnson's case, or in that of any
other senator, if there happen to be one who is af-
flicted with Mr. Johnson's infirmity. Whisky shops
" groggeries," and " rum holes" as they are promis-
cuously called, abound in every street in Washing-
ton, and within a stone's throw of the Senate Cham-
bers there are scores of such places in which any
thirsty senator, so disposed, may find either the re-
freshment he needs or the stimulus he craves. Mr.
Charles Sumner has publicly declared that the Fede-
ral cause could have better afforded to lose a battle
than to have been represented on the 4th of March
and in the presence of the world by such a Vice Pre-
sident as Mr. Johnson ; while Mr Thaddeus Stevens
loudly proclaims that if the House of Representa-
tives were in session he would feel it his duty, if no
one else moved in the matter, to propose a vote of
name ochfee the representatives censure on the offender, and call upon him in the
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manly propriety. It is highly probable that the
Senate will be compelled by the pressure of public
opinion to pass a vote of censure, and that it will
under no circumstances allow Mr. Johnson to preside
over its deliberations. No power, known to the Con-
stitution or the law, except an impeachment by both
houses, can deprive Mr. Johnson of the Vice-Presi-
dency if he choose to retain it ; and if an impeach-
ment were successful, the difficulty of electing aVice-
President by a popular vote in all the States, at a
time when no other election was pending, would be
to crush so small
so great, as well as so costly, as to deter Congress
from adopting so large a remedy
and unworthy a criminal. In addition to this diffi-
culty the House of Representatives, not being in
Session, would have to be summoned by proclama-
tion of the President, actually, if not nominally, for