The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-04 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 4, :1862.

Everything continues to look like increased
energy on the part of the North ; and if the state
of the weather and the difficulties of commissariat
do not prevent vigorous action, we shall certainly
before long hear of military proceedings which will
again keep us all awake. It seems surprising how
the Democratic triumphs have told exactly in the
reverse way to what so many here expected.
The Democrats, so far as they have acted in conse-
quence, have done so in the way of opposing the
illegal arrests of which there have been so many,
and apparently many of them indefensible. Some
excuse, however, may well be made for Mr. LIN-
COLN on account of the gross abuse of their liberty
by the numerous friends of the South resident in
the North. The South took the more arbitrary
course of warning off every Union man and woman
at once : " tarring and feathering" was the slightest
evil to be feared by any Northern-minded person
south of the Potomac. The North is not so prac-
tised in the discipline of Judge LYNCH as the South,
and the consequence is that the traitors remained,
enjoying the comforts of civilised life, but making
themselves useful to their Southern friends by com-
municating all the military plans of the North to
the South almost as soon as they were formed.

Thus we mentioned in our last notice of the war
that BURNSIDE had determined on a great change
in his mode of operations. He formed his
army into three divisions, and determined to
march west about forty miles, to Fredericksburg,
and to make that city, and Acquia Creek, which may
be considered its port, on the Potomac, considerably
south of Washington, the base of his operations in
his march to Richmond. It is nearer to Richmond
than Warrenton where he was, and the water com-
munications are of course better. So perfect is the
Southern spy system, that the day after the change
of base was decided on, General Lee was enabled to
move the Confederate army in accordance with the
secret counsels, as they were supposed to be of the
North ! Fredericksburg heard from LEE himself,
of the intended arrival of the Federal army
there on the Sunday, on the Friday
previous ; the orders to move having been given
only the Thursday previous to the Federal army !
It must be confessed that treachery at home like this
is enough to make Mr. STANTON and the PRESI-
DENT somewhat arbitrary in their arrests; if it is
hard that the innocent should suffer, or even that
Northerns should suffer for only " Southern pro-
clivities "—it is also hard that Northern Generals
should find their most secretly planned movements
known to Southern Commanders, by information
which must have come direct from the North.
We shall now begin to hear again, if the Federal
advance continues, of the Rappahannock, the York
and James Rivers; the three streams which lie
between the Potomac and Richmond, that city,
standing on both sides of the last. They will
now be much swelled by the rains ; but
as the road from Fredericksburg to Richmond, a dis-
tance of about 70 miles, lies across their upper
waters, they may perhaps be fordable. They will
form, however, the successive Confederate lines of
resistance; indeed, we hear already of the latter
manceuvring on the southern bank of the Rappa-
hannock, the most northerly of the three rivers, in
front of the Federal advance, and preparing to dis-
pute the passage. It is the river on which Fre-
dericksburg stands. It will be seen that General
SUMNER has summoned the town to surrender, and
allowed but sixteen hours to prepare, otherwise,
for a bombardment. As the railroad runs direct
south from it to Richmond, and north to Alexan-
dria and Washington, with a branch also to Acquia
the
necessities of war determine his occupation of
the town, as essential to BURNSIDES' new advance.
The Confederate General LONGSTREET appears to
be on the opposite side of the tuwn, but we pre-
sume in no such force as to oppose any serious
hindrance to the advance of General SUMNER, who
commands this division of BURNSIDE'S army.
Now that the lst of January
veryanuary draws near, the Con-
federates are getting
uneasy about the opera-
tion of the PRESIDENT'S proclamation. At first
they by turns laughed and denounced. The
negroes were so faithful that it was childish to

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THE SUN.