The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON:,

LIEUTENANT MAUII),Y ON THE
AMERICAN STRUG-GLE.

A recent number of the Richmond Daily Enquirer
contains the following letter from the pen of the
above distinguished man :
My Good Friend,—Your excellent letter of August last
has reached me only now. Notwithstanding its long tar-
rying by the way I hasten to thank you for it with all my
heart, and to assure you that its kind words and generous
sentiments have lost none of their force by the lapse of time.
I hope you will net think me insensible to the honours
with which you tell we I would be welcomed in Europe,
if, at present, I appear deaf to your assurance of their high
import.
It is true that the role which, up to this time, I have been
permitted to play in the great drama which my country is
enacting before the world, is humble ; still our cause is just ;
to me the blood of my children has consecrated it, it is
precious to my heart. All I have and all I own are in it ;
therefore, I prefer to tarry here—a refugee from my home
and my little ones—watching and waiting.
That we have no navy is also true. Nevertheless some-
thing may turn up. Chance may throw opportunity in my
way. If so, here lam in place, and here I prefer to tarry,
content to wait upon events, and patiently to bide my time.

It has now been but little more than a year since this
war was forced upon us. We, on our part, had to com-
mence it without an army, without a navy, and even with-
out a governmental organisation.
On the other hand the enemy, surrounded with all the
appliances of war, and complete in his organisation, ar-
ranged his legions for battle and rejoiced in his strength.
We found ourselves, purely an agricultural people, cut
off from the world an i suddenly thrown upon our own re-
sources, while he wa,s backed by all the appliances that the
workshops of Europe could supply or that commerce could
furnish. Notwithstanding this, our people bravely and de-
liberately resolved to withdraw from all political association
with the North, and to accept the consequences, be they
what they may.
There was no haste, coercion, or intimidation about this
move. Never was the popular will more fairly expressed
than when the Southern people uttered their voice for
secession.

Our enemies have sought to make the impression abroad
that the reverse was the case ; that this so .called " Rebel-
lion was hatched by a faction, and is led by a few fire-
eaters." No such thing. We were pushed into it, all un-
prepared as we were, by the tyranny and the usurpations
and the factions of the North.

In every Southern State the people were regularly
consulted on the question of separation from the North.
They expressed their opinions freely, and after full delibe.
ration ; and never were people more unanimous at any
ballot box than were ours for instant, complete, and eternal
separation from the North ; and that, too, at the instant,
all unprepared as they were. There is now no Union feel-
ing in the South, but the Yankees would fain have you be-
lieve that there is.

It is a fact not generally known abroad, but I may state
it now, that when this war commenced, and even after we
had assembled an army in the field, such was the want of
preparation, and such the lack of munitions of war on our
part, that there was not only not a percussion cap machine
in the Confederacy, but when the army of Manassas took
up its position it had but four rounds to the man. Had
the enemy joined battle with us there a few weeks sooner
than he did, we should, for the want of percussions caps,
have had to quit the field or fight him entirely with the
bayonet.

But see what we have accomplished in the way of pre-
paration. At this moment the great army of the North,
said to be the most superb with equipments that the world
ever saw—an army which we have stood still and permitted
the enemy to raise, and discipline, and to bring against us
at leisure—that grand army, before which our capital was
to fall and our people succumb, is now driven from its
trenches, routed and flying before our braves, armed, some
with flint locks, some with fowling pieces, some with per-
cussions, and all of divers patterns, just as we could fabri-
cate or rake and scrape them together. This fighting and
fleeing has been going on since yesterday week.
" In all probability you and the whole of Europe will
first hear of it as a great Yankee victory, for your first in.
telligence of it will be from the North.
Happily, for the cause of truth, you, in Europe, are
beginning to find the Yankees out, and to understand
their mendacious proclivities. They know it, and have
recently resorted to a 'new dodge.' You have ceased to
believe their newspapers, and have begun to find out that
their representations of the Southern cause, of Southern
prowess, sentiment, and feelings are not to be depended on,
so they now send you what purport to be Southern papers,
but they are counterfeits printed in the North.
They will take one of our Richmond papers, for instance,
duplicate its form and type, copy its advertisements, fill its
reading columns with their own inventions, give to it the
Richmond imprint, and sent it abroad as a bona fide South-
ern paper, which you will be sure to believe. From this
counterfeit their own papers are filled with extracts credited
to the Richmond papers. Thus the designing men there
still seek to deceive their own people and the world.
They boast of this as one of their "cute Yankee tricks."
They are a curious set.

The Yankees, in this war, have equalled the Chinese
in falsehoods. Their generals lie to their soldiers, to one
another, and to their Government, and their Government
to the world.

About a month ago the heart of all Yankeedom was made
by Gen. Halleck t•) rejoice over the reported capture by
Pope of 10,000 men and 15,000 stand of arms, from Beau-
regard's rear ; when these 10,000 prisoners, with the 15,000
stand of arms, had no more existence in reality than Fal-
staff's men in buckram. A friend of mine brought up Beau-
regard's rear. He waited and offered Pope battle, but Pope
made no attack except upon a train of cars with a few sick.

You recollect that Mr. Lincoln reported to his Congress
last December that he had an army:of 667,000 men already
raised to "crush out the rebellion ;" and that France and
England were asked to wait 90 days, when they should
have plenty of cotton.

Now let us inquire what that army is, for I have never
been able to make it out. You know that we have never
pretended to have on our side more than 400,000 men in
the field at any one time, and that in every advance that
Lincoln has attempted to make on us he has been brought
to a standstill, or driven back as soon as he parted
from his ships and gunboats. Neither Hunter in
Georgia, nor Benham in South Carolina, nor Burnside in
North Carolina, have found themselves in sufficient force
to advance against us. Halleck had to be called with his
army from Missouri to reinforce Buell so as to enable him
to advance upon Beauregard at Corinth, where we have
held the two armies in check for months. Butler has not
force enough to venture out of New Orleans—and our
Jackson, with an army all told of not over 21,000, drove the
Yankee Banks out of the Valley of the Shenandoah two or
three weeks ago. With this small force he created such a
panic in Washington that Lincoln called out the militia by
telegraph to defend his capital. He also called General
Fremont with his " divisicn" from the mountain, and
M'Dowell with his from the Rappahannock, to reinforce
Banks and hold in check this handful of Confederates,
while M'Clellan, with his "grand army," has been chased
from Richmond.

Either we are superior to the Yankees in prowess as
two to one, or they have lost in this war since December
lag not less than a quarter of a million of men; or the
"universal Yankee nation" has attempted a fraud upon
the Governments of Europe by misleading them as to the
extent of the preparations to " crush out" the so-called
rebellion in 90 days. Moreover, in all of our engagements
with the enemy, he claims that we outnumber him. How
could this be with his 667,000 against our 400,000 ?
Where are these 667,000 men ? I cannot account for
more than about 400,000. It is true we have inflicted
many and heavy losses upon the enemy in what he has
proclaimed to you as victories. But great as these losses
have been, they do not account for the difference between
667,000 and 400,000.
Action est de Republica. The Union is gone; and the
sooner the world addresses itself to that fact, the better
will it be for humanity and commerce.
Most that Europe knows of us has been learned
through Yankee sources, and I have taken up your
precious time with this disgusting recital merely to dis-
abuse your mind of any Yankee falsehoods that may
have found a lodgment there, and to give you practical
illustration of the despicable character of the people with
no proclamation
our
wives
children, Orleans,
to whom unfortunately we find ourselves embroiled,: and
from whose association we wish to withdraw.
an 1d
tellpth youaessabrmy Butler's
uslavesoflersinfamous
against
a Yankee refinement upon savage barbarity
which we have to contend with.

To shoot with poisoned arrowt is universally admitted to
be both savage and barbarous, but our men have been shot
with explosive bullets. Imagine a Minie bullet to be cut in
two transversely, and a wire to be inserted axially through
the front half or cone : the other part is then hollowed out
into a cup, filled with fulminate or some other explosive
prepatutien, and then securely fitted into the front part
and in such a manner that when the ball strikes the wire is
driven. back, and so by percussion explodes the ball inside
the wounded man. 16 not that, think you equal to the,
poisoned arrow ? There can be no mistake about it, for I
have seen the missile itself, and would send you one if I
could find a safe conveyance for the dangerous thing. The
true aim of savage warfare is to kill and murder—of civi-
lised to wound and disable. Which is it that the Yankees
are waging ?

The negro is not, as the Yankee would have the world
believe, the cause or the object of the war: The tariff and
hatred of the Yankee character—these are the true causes.
They are a nation of shopkeepers and pedlars; and under