The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-29 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' correspondent.)
NEW YORK, May 16.

The capture of Mr. Jefferson Davis must be re-
garded as a serious misfortune to the Northern
people. His escape to Europe was the solution of
the difficulty which above all others the Government
ought to have prayed for, if it had not covertly en-
deavoured to facilitate. Even his escape across the
Mississippi into Texas would have been less of a
calamity to the North than his trial and execution
for the crime of failure in an attempt, which only
required success to elevate him into the position of
one of the world's heroes. The manner in which the
"sensation" journals gloat over his capture creates
a feeling of horror, such as that which came over the
hearts of most men when they heard of the assassi-
nation of Mr. Lincoln. Though there is not a par-
ticle of evidence, and probably never will be, except
that suggested to or extorted from the lips of per-
jured villains, to connect him in the remotest man-
ner with the murder, his complicity with the assas-
sins is assumed, and every base and vile epithet is
hurled against him by men who would have licked
his boots had he .been successful in founding a
Southern nationality, if by so doing they could have
secured his favour or received the promise of a place.
An immediate trial before the military commission
now sitting at Washington to unravel the tangled
skein of Booth's conspiracy is suggested by the most
violent as the speediest means of deciding his fate,
and the best mode of degrading him to the level of a
common felon. Others, with equal vindictiveness, but
with more sense of the dignities and proprieties of the
case, recommend his trial on the charge of treason be-
fore the Supreme Court—a trial which is certain to
end in his conviction, and in which conviction is
equally certain to be followed by sentence of death.
It begins to be conceded by all moderate men, friends
as well as opponents of the Administration, that Mr.
Johnson was misled by false information, placed
before him by an over-zealous, passionate, and too
credulous public functionary, when he issued his
proclamation against Mr. Davis and the five
Southern refugees in Canada; and to be apparent as
the trial proceeds that there is no valid evidence
against them individually or collectively. Mr. John-
son, with a promptitude that does him credit, when
he saw for the first time how all but unanimous
public opinion was in denouncing the secrecy observed
by the military tribunal in the trial of Harrold, Mrs.
Surratt, and their accomplices, gave orders that the
reporters for the public press should be admitted.
He has done much to set himself right with the
country, and to throw the disgrace of unconstitu-
tional and illegal action upon the violent men whom
he found in office. Were he to go a step further, re-
call his ill-judged proclamation, direct Mr. Davis to
be tried in open court before a jury for the treason
which, by the fact of his failure, that unhappy gen-
tleman has undoubtedly committed ; and, after sen-
tence of death duly pronounced and recorded against
him, magnanimously exercise his prerogative of
pardon, or commute the sentence into banishment
for life from the North American continent, Presi-
dent Johnson might not only rescue his Govern-
ment and his country from a great and fruitful
peril, but surround his " plebeian" name—and as
heis proud of being a " plebeian" there ought to
be no offence in the word—with a halo of true glory
and mercy, which any patrician or aristocrat in
the world might envy.
It must be said, however, that for the great. mis-
fortune that has befallen him Mr. Jefferson Davis
is himself greatly to blame. Mrs. Davis and her
children, if they had been left at Richmond, or
even at Danville, would have been safe from harm.
'Though a few military amateurs have rendered them-
selves notorious by their petty tyranny towards
ladies, the Northern people as a rule are noted for
a deference to the fair sex. No one would have in-
jured a hair of Mrs. Davis's head ; no one would
have thought even of directing an opprobrious
epithet against her; no one would have subjected
her to contumely or insult, or thought of her other-
wise than with respectful sympathy in her great mis-
fortune, if she had been left behind. But Mr. Davis
not only retarded his own movements by permitting
her to follow him -in his darkening fortunes, but
wasted precious days at Danville and other places
instead of flying as fast as circumstances would per-
mit towards the Misgissippi. Had he succeeded in
crossing the river he might have saved his life, and
negotiated terms of surrender as favourable as those
accorded to Generals Lee, Joseph Johnston, and
Richard Taylor. The fatal error of indecision seems
to have been inherent in his character. He could not
make up his mind to abandon Richmond, when he
might have done so, not only without detriment but
with alvantage to the cause. He could not make
up his mind to drill and arm, on the promise of free-
dom, 150,000 or 200,000 slaves, though he might by
so doing have seen-red the independence of the Con-
federacy.- -Both-of these- measures werepersonally
disagreeable MIAS' pride, and he. trifled 'with them
until it was too late, and ended by sacrificing the
great cause intrusted to his keeping. Unless it be
for his wife and family, Mr. Davis has now nothing
to live for, and may even court the doom with which
he is threatened bylis enemies. As the murder of
Mr. Lincoln in his hour of triumph, when his work
seemed almost done, has liftedhim for all time above
the crowd of common men and enshrined his memory
in the world's history as the representative as well as
the martyr of a nation, so the judicial murder of Mr.
Davis on the charge of treason will, if inflicted by
the North, elevate him also to a place in the rever-
ence and affection of the South, which it is not for
the present interest or the future peace of the North
that any man living or dead should occupy.

The trial of the conspirators does not excite so
much curiosity as was anticipated, and far more sen-
sation has been created by the wordy war between
the Court and the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, the
Senator from Maryland, who consented to act as
counsel for Mrs. Surratt—mother of one of the sus-
pected, but not yet arrested criminals—than by any
details of the plot as yet elicited. It was attempted
by General Harris to deter Mr. Reverdy Johnson
from acting as counsel by a very unwarranted and
unwarrantable imputation upon his loyalty to the Go-
vernment, in which imputation he was supported in
an offensive tone and manner by General Hunter,
the President of the Court. Mr. Johnson, like a
practised debater, both at the Bar and the Senate,
foiledhis assailants most dexterously and completely
on the point of fact, and took the opportunity to
rebuke the military gentlemen for their arrogance,
by the statement that had it not been for his vener-
able years and cooled passions, it might not have
been so safe as it then was to assail his honour by
false charges which his whole life and character were
sufficient to refute. This was perhaps a mistake, a
want of taste on the part of Mr. Johnson, but if it
were, what is to be said of the retort of General
Hunter, who angrily declared that "he hoped the
day had passed when freemen from the North were
to be bullied and insulted by the humbug chivalry
of the South?" As the insults came from the Court
uponth!lr. Johnson, and as " the chivalry of the
South"
were in no degree implicated in the question
at •
Issue) which his
was one of personal honour and
veracity, the Military Court sacrificed more of its
dignity
the
encounter than the fearless counsel
whom it sought intimidate. The evidence up to
this date implicates all the persons in custody, and
the son of Mrs.aSsingle,fwho is not yet arrested, but
has not elicited
to inculpate Mr. Jeffer-
son Davis in any kno:letetaduse. o. f the crime, or to
fasten any reasonable suspicion upon Messrs.
Sanders, and Tucker. A
Thompson, Clay, Cleary,
man named Weichman deposed that he heard Sur-
ratt, whose mother indubitably knew of and aided
the diabolical conspiracy of Booth, Say that he had
been in Canada, and had afterwards gone to Rich-
mond. Upon this slim fotiudation the prosecution
based its charge against Mr. Davis ; or if it has any..
thing further in reserve it has yet to produce it. Mr.
Reverdy Johnson asked the witness if he ever heard
Surratt say or saw him do anything which induced
him to think that Surratt's purpose was to assassi-
nate Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, or anybody else?
The question was objected to by the Court, and
was not allowed to be pressed.
The still continued excitement with regard to the
filibustering ‘1,:1,,,,1;ti0n to Mexico, which has such
extraordinary charms for all the rowdyism of the
North not used up and exhausted in thii awful car-