The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-04 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 20.
Ever since the surrender of Savannah the people
of the North of both political parties have been in a
state of excited satisfaction. The subsequent capture
of Fort Fisher, cheaply purchased, they consider,
with the lives of 1,500 or 2,000 men, has increased
their delight, and if General Sherman and his gal-
lant army will march as successfully through South
Carolina as he did through Georgia and seize upon
Charleston as easily as upon Savannah, their joy
will border closely upon delirium. They are told,
upon high authority, to expect this great result
within a very short period; and have already begun
to calculate, as they think, for the last time, the
number of weeks that must elapse before not only
Charleston, the cradle, but Richmond, the throne,
of the " rebellion," shall be theirs, and the flag of
the restored Union float triumphantly over every
fort and public building between the St. Lawrence
and the Rio Grande. It must be admitted that in
this moment of real and anticipated victory they
make no threats of revenge, and breathe no whispers
of extermination against the Southern people, nor
even against the leaders. The only vindictiveness
heard is the customary denunciation of England,
coupled with a warning to that " perfidious Power"
that when North and South join hands they will
cement their new compact by a foreign war, and
take the opportunity to humble the pride of
Britain and reduce her to her true position in
Europe—a little higher perhaps than Denmark, or
a little lower than Turkey. And it is not alone the
success of the Federal arms, but the statements and
discussions of the Richmond papers which either
support or oppose the Confederate Administration
that fill the Northern people with such sanguine
hopes of the approaching restoration of the Union.
They see in those discussions a proof that the
Southern leaders are prepared to listen to terms of
peace, and all except the earnest Abolitionists are
inclined to support Mr. Lincoln in making every
possible effort at conciliation, even to the recogni-
tion of State rights upon the matter of slavery. They
argue that slavery has received its death wound in
the progress of the war—a wound from which it is
Impossible that it can recover—and that there is con-
sequently no necessity to make any stipulations with
regard to it. All that can be done, they think, is to
leave it to time and to the action of the several
States in which its perishing remnants shall continue
to exist for a few months or years longer: Last week
people attached but little interest to the missions of
Mr. Blair, sen., or General Singleton, but the an-
nouncement to-day that Mr. Blair has departed for
Richmond a second time has invested his movements
with unexpected importance, and led most people to
believe that both his first and second visits are not so
wholly unofficial or personal as was once pretended.
After his return to Washington, and prior to his
second departure, Mr. Blair made no public an-

nouncement, and suffered none to be made in his
behalf, of the objects or results of his journey ; but
the Richmond papers assert that he had a long, a
cordial, and a confidential interview with the Southern
President, and afterwards with the Minister of War;
and that Mr. Davis expresged his willingness to send
commissioners or ambassadors to Washington, to
confer with any commissioners in that city whomthe
Fedefal Government might appoint. In view of his
second visit these revelations of the Richmond press
acquire additional importance. But whether they
mean much or little depends upon the interpretation
which is to be put upon the intentions and views of
Mr. Davis and his Government in consenting to
negotiation. Every belligerent,, if he be not a
savage, ought at any period of a war to be willing to
discuss whether it be not possible and advisable to
make peace ; and it by no means follows, from the
-willingness expressed by Mr. Davis, that he is pre-
pared, as the great bulk of the Northern people sup-
pose, to yield the one great point of independence,
or that he does not believe that the North is as
weary of the war as he can be, and is prepared to
recognise the South upon favourable conditions.
There are, however, in the North almost as many
opinions upon the subject as there are parties and
interests.

One class of people is convinced that the rece:
victories of the Federal arms, especially the actual
loss of Savannah and the prospective surrender of
Wilmington and Charleston, have virtually made an
end of the rebellion ; and the people are ready to
return to their allegiance, and that •the leaders,
seeing the hopelessness of further resistance, are will-
ing to make any terms that shall secure their per-
sonal safety. Another section, which does not be-
lieve that the spirit of the South is effectually
broken, is of opinion that Mr. Davis, his Cabinet,
his Generals, his Congress, and a large portion of his
people are so disgusted with the heartlessness of
Great Britain and France in leaving the South un-
recognised and unbefriended, to fight single-handed
against its gigantic adversary, that they are willing
to re-enter the Union, if slavery, wherever it now
exists in the States, be solemnly guaranteed in an
amended Constitution ; and that, if satisfied on this
point, they will unite their armies with those of
the North to expel the Emperor Maximilian from
Mexico, and annex British America and the West
India Islands, as well as Cuba, to the Federal
Union. A third party insists that the South, so far
from being exhausted or discouraged, is able to
maintain its independence for 20 or even for 40
years against the whole power of the North, and
that, too, without resorting to the last extremity of
arming its able-bodied slaves ; but is willing for the
sake of peace to come to terms with the North, on
the basis of a highly advantageous commercial
treaty, which shall include an export duty of ten
cents per pound on all cotton intended for the Euro-
pean and especially for the British market. A
fourth party, which may be small, but which makes
up in intellectual foresight and sound statesman-
ship for its deficiency in popularity, treats all these
suppositions baseless and unworthy of credit. It
admits that Mr. Davis and his Government are
willing, as Christians and gentlemen should be, to
consent to a suspension of hostilities, to appoint
commissioners, and to discuss all points at issue be-
tween North and South, and that they are now, as
they ever have been, willing to treat with the North,
as equal to equal, and to debate any and every pro-
position that may be made to them, except their re-
turn to the Union. A much larger, though less
influential, party
encourages the idea that the " Re-
bellion," as the North persists in caning it, is the
work of the Southern leaders alone, and that the
people are now, and always have been, friendly to
the old Union, and would return to it cheerfully,
and without conditions, if the pressure put upon
them by these leaders were removed. Some even go
so far as to express their conviction that a counter
revolution in the South is imminent, and that Pre-
sident Davis himself is so fully aware of it as to be
more inclined to lead and take advantage of than
to oppose it. These speculations help to show how
contradictory and diversified are the opinions of the
Northern people, and how little they appreciate the
true character of the struggle in which they are in-
volved, or the opponents with whom they have to
deal. If the politicians and people of the North,
who reckon 'BO much on the bitter opposition that
has manifested itself against President Davis, and
upon the depressing effect upon the Southern mind
of the brilliant successes which have for the last
three months attended the armies and navies of the
North, would look back to the early days of the Re-
public, and study the history of the discourage-
meats, privations, and reverses that be fe 1 General
Washington, they would discover that theirmoi‘dierl.
hero and patriot was in far worse straits than
Jefferson Davis, and that he ultimately triumphed
over obstacles much greater than have ever yet
tried the patience and energy of the South. They
might also discover that France was the de;„
ex muchitict which enabled the colonies to foil the
power of the Government which considered the great
Washington to be a rebel ; and remember that the
same agency may become available for a similar
purpose in the present day, if the Mexican question
continues to be made a pretext for insult or hostility
by the Federal Government, as many current indi-
cations seems to foreshadow.
The gold-market, which exhibited unexampled
steadiness on the first news of the fall of Fort Fisher,
has been yesterday and to-day in a state of violent