The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-18 00:00:00

wolem• 40.440r-1

'RICA..

(Prom a Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 6.

During the recent war the North could obtain
very little information with regard to the actual con-
dition of affairs in the South, beyond that which
came back to this country from England. No
Northern man was allowed to go within the South-
ern lines, and consequently it was impossible to ob-
tain material for correctly estimating the effects
which the long-protracted contest produced in the
South until very lately, when the country was thrown
open again to the world. Every one who has passed
through the States lately in secession testifies that
the wreck is complete, and but for the enterprise
from new channels which will flow into the South it
would probably be irretrievable. There is no latent
vitality in the Southern States themselves which
could lead to their recovery. All the wealth that
was made there formerly was invested in slaves, and
the whole of this property was summarily destroyed
by a stroke of Mr. Lincoln's pen. There are thus no
resources in reserve to fall back upon in this time
of trial and adversity. The entire system of labour
has been revolutionised, and thus the very fruits
of the earth cannot be secured unless help from
without is furnished. The prostration of the South
is much greater than many in England can suppose.
A few facts will serve to show how utterly the South
had exhausted its strength before Lee was aura
rounded by the Union armies and reluctantly sur-
rendered. In the early part of 1861 gold was at 5
premium in Georgia, and by the end of the year it
had advanced to 30. The first three months of
1862 found it fluctuating between 20 and 60, and
before the end of June the dollar in gold was
worth $2. In November the gold dollar was
worth $3 ; seven months afterwards (in July,
1863) it was worth $lO ; in December of the same
year the premium had advanced to $2l. Down
to December of the following year (1864) the
price varied between $2l and $35, and from that
time it advanced by giant strides. In April of this
year, when the troubles of the South were fast over-
whelming it, the dollar in gold could not be bought
for less than $BO in paper; on the 20th of April the
price was $100; on the 26th, $200; on the 27th,
$300; on the 28th, $5OO ; on the 29th, $BOO ; and on
April 30 it was $l,OOO. At last, on May 1, the gold
dollar was quoted in the Southern brokers' list at
$1,200 premium, and it was on this day that the
last sale of Confederate notes was made.

To single out an individual State in further illus-
tration of the condition of the late Confederacy.
When the war began, Charleston, South Carolina,
had $15,000,000 invested in bank stock. Of that
sum every vestige has been lost. It had $5,000,000
of bills in circulation, of which the market value is
now said by a local paper to be 20 per cent. It had
$20,000,000 in railways, and as the railways are de-
stroyed the money is gone. There were three insu-
rance companies, all of which were obliged to aban-
don business. "Of 5,000 houses in Charleston,"
states a journal of that city, "1,500 have been burnt,
and others almost irreparably damaged. Of estates
of secedents and minors, and of property in litiga-
tion, four-fifths are represented by Confederate
securities, and are therefore valueless. The estates
in the district have been seized for taxes, or long
since abandoned. The cotton estates in the interior
are now as bare as a wilderness. The money which
the inhabitants possessed was invested in Confede-
rate securities, which are now so much waste paper.
The farming stock has all been carried off or de-
stroyed, the funds of churches, schools, and similar
institutions have been swallowed up in the general
gulf, and property invested in slaves, representing
$200,000,000, has also disappeared. " And thus,"
says the Charleston paper,
" Of the $400,000,000 worth of property in the State in
1860 but little more than $50,000,000 now remains. The
State, indeed, resembles a vast wreck. Something valuable
may possibly be saved by time and labour; but at present
it is a mere mass of broken spars and shattered timbers.
When the debris is cleared off, and the killed and wounded
disposed of, something may be done. At present, even the
extent of the destruction is hardly realised."
With scenes such as these before them it is no
wonder that the people of the South are heartsick
at the very thought of war. However strange it
may seem to the English nature that men who have
been so terribly beaten should be on good terms with
their victors so soon, it is a fact that there is not
one Southern man out of a hundred who is not now
as strongly a Union in to as Mr. Seward himself.
Recent converts are always eager, and possibly the
enthusiasm of the Southern people for the " old
flag," and the rest of it, is occasionally a little sus-
picious. But at heart they are for peace, and not
for peace only, but for unity in the Legislature, and
for obliterating all the bitter feelings of the past.
" If our advocates here and elsewhere, a prominent
leader of the late Confederacy said to me recently,
would but let us alone, since they cannot do us
good in any other way, they would entitle them-
selves to our gratitude. We want Northern men and
Northern money to help us. We can get neither
while the papers which are supposed to represent
our views affirm that we are preparing for another
attempt to break up the Union." And, again,
another said, " Why should we want to fight now ?
Slavery is gone ; it was the one great source of dis-
agreement between us. All the fighting in the world
could not bring it back again." At the Mississippi
Convention, held a few days ago, the Hon. W. T.
Martin, a major-general in the Confederate army,
said he went into the contest from a feeling of
loyalty to his State, but he had never wished to see
the Union broken up. The persons who had been
loudest in their outcries against the Union had been
the first to run away when a draught was made—
" they were the very people who had brought on
the war, and their deluded victims were the igno-
rant people." This gentleman added—
"ln God's name, let the South never again rebel upon
such a miserable, miserable delusion as the right of seces-
sion. He hoped most devoutly that there would never
again be any attempt to separate from the National Govern-
ment. He was tired and sick of war—tired of fighting the
battles of others, who enticed him and others) with lying
speeches, and when the day of their calamity came, deserted
them to their fate."

Such is the spirit in which the South itself is ac-
celerating the work of reorganisation. No doubt
there are many vast difficulties yet to be surpassed
before that work can be deemed to have materially
advanced ; important issues have still to be decided,
intricate political problems to be unravelled. But it
is a great thing to have the people apply themselves
with heartiness and sincerity to the restoration of
their country in their own way. I have no doubt
that it will be said, "The Southern people are not in
a-yielding spirit—they have not abandoned the fight,
but only postponed it." But those who will so allege
are among the judicious persons wha bragged and
ran away, who beheld the struggle at a safe dis-
tance, who are not now on the scene of the late strife
to know the truth, and who shut their eyes and ears
to all that is being said and done by the mass of the
people. There are some men in New York who say
the South will have another struggle for victory."
They were the identical men who said orginally,
46 The North will never fight ; the Yankees are all
cowards; England will be obliged to recognise the
Confederacy in order to get cotton; the Northern
States must be bankruptsoon ; the South must:
Among other fragments of the history of the con-
test on the part of the South which are now floating
up on the dark stream of its hitoryt are some which
relate to the eminent commanders:of , its armies.
The Northern generals, and possibly a large propor-
tion of the people, reverence Jackson as much as
even the South can do. It would, indeed, be strange
if he were ever spoken harshly of, since he was a
man of whom all Americans have reason to be proud.
In conversation with many officers who were his
contemporaries at West Point—the great military
school of America, as the reader need scarcely be
reminded—and from some occasional narratives in
local papers, I have gathered a few facts about this
hero of the Confederacy, in losing whom the South
bast half its strength at one fatal stroke, and found
the other half too little to enable it to bear up against
its antagonists.
The candidates for admission to the West Point
Academy are required to pass a preliminary exami-
nation of an exceedingly elementary
Jackson failed to pass this, and under ordinary
circumstances would have found the doors shut
against him. But the examiners saw that he was a I