The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-03 00:00:00

'HE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(FROM THE TIMES CORRESPONDENT.)
NE W YORK, MAY 20.
As was anticipated by every one, the President
has lost no time in disavowing the extraordinary
order of General David Hunter, setting free the
slaves of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
Mr. Lincoln did not wait to have official cognizance
of the document, but, taking its authenticity for
granted, and setting it forth in his own proclama-
tion, he has solemnly repudiated it, and re-stated
intentions
on and emphatically his policy and
on the whole subject of negro slavery. The Presi-
dent did not stir in the matter a moment too soon.
The hours and even the minutes were precious, and
were turned to hostile account through all the
Border States, and wherever else a suspicion was
possible that the Government had suddenly changed
its policy and become a convert to the views of Mr.
Wendell Philipps and the Ultra-Abolitionists.
That the repudiation, prompt and decisive as it is,
%NM allay the excitement which the order caused
throughout the South is not to be expected, for the
Southern leaders and editors have taken care to
give the utmost possible publicity to a document
that was so well calculated to strengthen the exist-
ing hostility to the North, and will take equal pains
to prevent Mr. Lincoln's explanation from reaching
the people. The Democratic and Pro-Slavery party
are not satisfied with the mere reprimand which
the proclamation conveys, and call for General
Hunter's removal, But as the General has friends
in the Cabinet, and is supposed to be sheltered under
the broad aegis of Mr. Secretary Stanton, to whom
the President defers in military matters, it is pos-
sible that he will be allowed to retain his post.
But even in that case, in a country where the pri-
vate soldier does not renounce his politics in con-
senting to fight for the Government, it will be for
General Hunter to decide whether the rank and
file share his opinions or those of the President.
In either case, a very highminded officer Would
solve the difficulty by resigning his command;
and as such a course would gratify the
Abolitionists as much as it would ths Pru-
Slavery and Democratic party, though for very dif-
ferent reasons, there is a general expectation that a
new appointment to the military department of
Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida will be imme•
diately placed at the disposal of the Government.
General M'Clellan has begun to find that Rich-
mond will detain him as long or longer than York-
town, and is taking his measures for a regular
siege with his usual prudence and completeness. He
is now at a place called Bottom's Bridge, within 15
miles of the Confederate capital, with a large swamp
between him and the city. He is opposed by a force
that is believed to be greatly superior to his own.
To counterbalance that disadvantage he has the
aid of the Monitor and the gunboats, released from
duty off Hampton Roads by the self-immolation of
the Merrimac. This flotilla steamed up the James
River on Friday last to operate against Richmond,
but within seven miles of the city met with a serious
reverse, the news of which arrived in New York OR
Sunday morning early, and cast a general gloom
over the streets and churches, which contrasted
strongly with the jubilation of the Sunday previous.
At a high bluff on the river their upward progress
was suddenly arrested by the guns of the newly-
erected Fort Darling, of which the existence was
previously unknown, and by the chain bars, sunken
vessels, and large stones that had been placed across
the river to defend the passage. The redoubtable
Monitor could not elevate her guns to fire against
the fort. The Naugatuck burst her large 100
pounder Parrot gun at the first fire, and lost 17
men by the explosion. The Galena, though iron.
clad and asserted to be as invulnerable as the Moni-
tor, was seriously injured ; and after a fight of four
hours the victory remained with Fort Darling, and
the disabled flotilla retired beyond the reach of the
enemy's guns. In this encounter the Monitor was
quite useless. The result will be that mechani-
cal ingenuity will immediately strive to provide
her, and other iron-clad vessels, with guns that can
operate against a high fort as effectively as against a
ship on their own level. The Monitor is said to have
been uninjured by the shot that was rattled against
her deck and sides from the fort ; but the Galena
was penetrated by 18 shot out of 28 that struck her,
and lost her claim to rank among the invulnerables.
A new attempt is to be immediately made to force
tho ptiel,ShEra up the Su
of Commodore Farragut at New Orleans has tended
to make all other naval commanders as daring, or as
reckless, as he was ; but the defenders of Richmond
are forewarned, and will, of course, be so well fore-
armed as to make the attempt more than ordinarily
perilous.

There is not likely to be any news from Corinth
for some days, unless some overwhelming victory
or defeat of the Federal arms under Halleck shall
make itself known in spite of the Government and
the War-office. All the reporters and correspon-
dents of the press have left Gen. Halleck's camp and
lines by order of superior authority, and if there
be a great defeat, as seems to be the prevalent fear
of all who know the man and the army, the news
will be modified and kept back as much as possible,
and allowed to percolate as softly as may be into
the popular mind. Under no other supposition is it

easy to account for the extraordinary solicitude
which the Government displays in this instance. It
almost looks as if the defeat had already occurred,
and as if the Government were waiting to balance
it with a victory elsewhere before they will allow
the public to be informed of it.
The possibility of a foreign intervention continues
to be a general theme of discussion ; but the idea is
only tolerated on the supposition that France and
England will prevail upon the Confederates to lay
down their arms, and afterwards use such influence
as they may possess to obtain mercy for Mr. Jeffer-

son Davis and the principal chiefs and generals of
the " rebellion." Under no other circumstances
Willl any European Power be listened to. Such is
the talk of the clubs and bar-rooms, re-echoed in
the whole Northern press. But, with or without
foreign intervention, the same class of enthusiasts
who Originally gave the war 90 days to run itself
out—who afterwards extended the term to the anni-
versary of the capture of Fort Sumter, and, again, to
the Ist of May in this year—have resolved in their
own minds that all shall be over before the 4th July
—that day the dearest of all others to the heart
of every true American.
On the 3d of July, the
" full
Federal flag floating high displayed" over
Richmond and over Corinth, over every city, town,
fort, and village, and in every river, harbour, lake,
and sea of the restored Union, a proposition from
France and England to spare the lives of Jefferson
Davis and Generals Lee, Beauregard, Johnson, and
Magruder will be favourably entertained by the
President. A similar request on behalf of General
Floyd and Mr. Tombs, those traitorous members of
Mr. Buchanan's Government, will be respectfully,
but firmly declined; and on the 4th the facts will
be officially promulgated; and there will be a gene-
ral shaking of hands all round, the discharge of
thousands of tons of harmless gunpowder in salvoes
of rejoicing, and a new start in life and glory for
Brother Jonathan—a
grander, a bigger," and a
more hugely indebted nation than was ever made,
or that ever grevs in so short a
space of time. Such
programme of the
is the present performances, only
to be altered by the possible obstinacy of Generals
Leo and Johnson at Richmond, and of General
Beauregard at Corinth, all of whom may
.r have very
different views both as to time and circumstance.
The financial part of this mighty business is that
which appears to give everybody the least concern.
It seems to be thought mean to talk about money
where so much glory is concerned ; though when
the financial condition of the South is spoken of,

every one can see very clearly
how wrong its Go-
vernment has been in issuing immense quantities
of paper money, end in forcing unwilling traders
to accept its notes at rt. When they were really
not worth 40 cents. to the dollar. A few stray
notes of the Confederate Government for dollars
and half-dollars, and even for smaller sums, have
recently found their way to the North--rifled, in
some instances, from the pockets of dead soldiers
on the field of battle, or taken as change in default
of anything better at the whisky stores of sotne
evacuated city of the South. They are not very
favourable specimens of theurtpl printing or de•
sign, though not much coarser in tither iesPeet than

the notes with which every one must be familiar who
has travelled in Austria. Some of these spoils of
war have lately been sold in the city fo- sums very
far in excess of their nominal value, doubtless to be
transferred to the scrap-books or albums of ladies
or other collectors, and preserved as mementoes of
the war.
The South, unlike the North, has been in great
distress for want oP paper. The North may have
lacked gold and silver to pay its war expenses, but
its supply of paper and ink have been all but un-
limited, and the production of creditable looking
bank and government notes have never stopped
for deficiency of the raw material. It has not been
so in the South. Paper of the most inferior kind
has been used for the purpose, and in some instances
old cardboard and bandboxes, and even the blank
halves of old letters have been pressed into the ser-
vice. The New York journals have, for some days
past, been making exceedingly merry over these
Southern " shin-plasters." If you ask an American
familiar with current slang what a " shin-plaster ,
is, he will tell you that it is an inconvertible note
—a small accommodation bill, or a promise to pay,
not representing any legitimate mercantile trans-
action, or representable by the smallest quantity of
the precious metals, or by any other article of real
and tangible property. If you ask him whether
there are no shin-plasters in the North, he will re-
ply in the negative. If you urge that the Federal
Government has issued 166 millions of paper dol-
lars, based entirely upon its credit, and not repre-
sented by gold or silver, and ask whether these 150
millions of paper deserve any other name, he will
reply that he cannot see it—that if you possess
one of these bills for five dollars, the lowest figure
yet issued, you can buy anything that its nominal
value will cover just as readily as with a piece of
gold; that the people have confidence in the Go-
vernment; that they are likely to continue to have
confidence in it; and that as long as such confidence
lasts there is no necessity to have gold or silver in
reserve to represent any amount of notes that the
Government may please to issue. He does not see
that in the North as well as in the South this ques-
tion of confidence is nne nn which a Government
as well as the people may deceive itself, and the
confidence which he himself feels in his Government
to-day might be destroyed or very much weakened
to-morrow, if a series of reverses were to befall its
arms, such as the defeat of M'Clellan at Richmond,
the recapture of New Orleans or the annihilation of
the great army of the South-West by the force under
Beauregard. He sees the mote in the Southern eye,
but not the beam in the eye of the North, and
thinks that nothing can be clearer than the fact
that the South will be ruined by its civet-issues
of paper money, if from no other cause. All the
journals of New York appear to be of the same
opinion, and one of them has just published an
elaborate article to prove the awful nature of the
financial error into which the South has fallen.
" The whole rebel currency," it asserts—
" Has been from the start the most stupendous
swindle that the world has ever beheld. It falls
dead upon the hands of every man who holds it,
and 300,000,000 dols. of loss cannot -be so distributed
in any community as not to impoverish thousands
by the explosion. What other generations suffered
from Continental notes and assignats the South
must suffer with far greater severity than this uni-
versal collapse. It is only upon the return of peace
that such explosions culminate. While the war
lasts a pervading pressure serves to brace up all
hopes and interests; but this pressure relaxes with
the return of peace, and the vast artificial system
which the war compelled collapses into a desolating
chaos. This generation will soon witness a spec-
tacle in the rebel States such as history but faintly
pictures as having succeeded the American revolu-
tion, the overthrow of Napoleon, or the close of our
second war with England."
This is all very true; but does not the argument
apply to the North as well as to the South ? And
if the Northern Government continues to incur
enormous debt, and to flood the land with paper
money, may there not be a collapse in New York as
well as in New Orleans ? And if, in the above
extract the word " federal " were substituted for
" rebel," would not the warning read equally well,
and be quite as much needed P
Efforts are constantly made to hide from the
public the real magnitude of the debt that has
already been incurred, and to exaggerate, at the
Luxpaymis poweits VILLA) euuimunity
—powers that are too exclusively based upon the
wealth of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and
not calculated on the productive resources of the
agricultural and manufacturing community, scat-
tered over the great West and North. Should peace
between the belligerents be established before the
4th of July, which is, as I have already remarked,
the favourite date now fixed by sanguine patriots
for the end of the war, the public debt will amount
to 1,250,000,000, borrowed at various times, and for
various periods, at 4,5, 6, and 7 per cent. If the war
lasts until the summer of 1863, which is highly pro-
bable, from the desperate tenacity and hatred of the
one side, and from the equally desperate pride of the
other, it will amount to double that sum, or, in
round numbers, £500,000,000 sterling. "We are
so great a people," says one journal, in grim jest,
"that we can incur in two years as big a debt as
poor little England can incur in a hundred." The
all-important question that Northern Americans
should ask themselves with respect to the "big
debt" is,
," Will the credit of the Federal Govern-
ment, separated from or in renewed union with the
South, be sufficient to provide regularly for the
payment of the interest ?" If the debt be consoli-
dated at 5 per cent. the annual burden fixed upon
the labour and trade of the country by two years of
civil and fruitless warfare will amount to
£25,000,000 sterling. And whether the South
succeed or fail in establishing its independence, the
current annnal expenses of the Federal Govern-
ment will certainly, on the most moderate calcula
tion, amount to £25,000,000 more, or £50,000,000
sterling, for past war and present safety.
Whether it be compelled to keep the South
in military subjection, or to hold its own against
the encroachments or hostility of a rival Republic,
it will be forced to maintain a large army and a
powerful navy. Before the outbreak of the war, the
Federal Government was a mere shadow. It had
little authority and few expenses, and such expenses
as it had were more than provided for by Customs
duties and the sale of the national domain. But,
winning or losing, the Federal Government mus

cease to be a shadow, and become a reality. It has
levied large armies, fitted out magnificent fleets, and

gained great victories upon credit, and at the pre-
sent moment the Northern people are willing to

give it credit for any amount it pleases, so gratified
are they with its warlike achievements. No one
seems to remember or to care that although the war

has lasted upwards of a year the Federal Govern-
ment has not hitherto paid a single penny to sup-
port it except in paper, or that the Tax Bill, which
is intended to provide ears for meeting their great
liabilities has not
stances,
tan c e s ,
the:sb
yet passed into law, and threatens
;
to be
-noznereatin.
toive if it ever shall receive the Presi-
dential Surely, in face of the circum
utli.
i is not fairly chargeable with a
monopoly ofs
plasters P "
There has been no no depreciation in the value of
s stillF edeenr
;la
acGl
do vi
ne rpnrmi
netni
nt a h
aass
i
the paper which the
issued, and which it
fast as a steam-engine Can
work
price of food and of
the
great cities,
the 3 but there has
been a very general rise of
all the necessaries of life in
as well
as a very
general interruption to
trade, which
has thrown vast numbers of people out of e ra- plo- y
'tient, sent the youngest and most vigorous -
of them
to the war, left the old and infirm to Poverty or
pauperism.

It used to be the hoist of America that there were
no beggars in their streets, and that pauperism, the
chronic disease of the Old World, had not been
inoculated upon the New.
The boast is no longer
founded upon fact. There are as many beggars in
New York in proportion . to its
population as there
are in London, and the spawn of the
war, has fastened itself upon the body
Pauperism,
politic. But
what signifies ? Money is plentiful for speculation,
if not for trade. The largest and most valuable
coin to be seen is the 60-cent. piece, worth a little
more than 2s. Evglish; and that is only obtainable
in change for the, smaller plAthase_
g that can bp
made with a dollar. The gold is all in the banks, )