The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-04 00:00:00

T,IIE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent)
NEW YORK, Dec. 20.
Seldom have the Northern people been per-
mitted to enjoy such a feast of victory as that
which within the last few days has been spread be-
fore them by Generals Sherman and Thomas. It is
difficult to say which of the two is at this moment
the most popular, or excites by his achievements
the most enthusiasm. Sherman's march through
Georgia, without, as he reports, " the loss of a
waggon," is one of the most brilliant episodes of the
war, and will secure him a high and abiding place
in the history of his country. The Confederate
forces that might have opposed him were so small
and so widely scattered, and by the mystery as
well as the masterfiof his movements he threatened
so many places at once, that there was literally no-
body to contest his progress. He swept across a
belt of territory from 10 to 20 miles wide and 300
miles long with the force and destructiveness of a
hurricane ; arrived at the seaboard with a well-fed,
will wed, and exultant army ; established his
communication with the Federal fleet ; assaulted
and captured a strong fort, and took up such a
position in the rear of Savannah as, with a Federal
fleet in its front, to leave little if any doubt that the
place must speedily surrender or be reduced to
-ashes. The achievements of Gen. Thomas are not
so splendid, nor have they jet reached ;their climax
in the destruction—a final defeat of General Hood,
who, in the face of mighty obstacles and an im-
mense superiority of numbers, has been nobly fight-
ing in defence of the cause intrusted to his safe-
keeping. No one will deny that he is a brave sol-
dier, but he has added by his conduct of the cam-
paign in Georgia and Tennessee since the removal
of General Joseph E. Johnston another proof to
the many which this and all other wars
have afforded that something more than personal
bravery is required in a generalissimo. The indivi-
dual soldier, if he be a private, a captain, a colonel,
or a divisional commander, may, without incurring
blame, be brave to rashness when he acts in obe-
dience to orders, but a general in chief who exhibits
the virtue of bravery unaccompanied by that of
prudence or adaptation of means to ends cannot
escape censure even from his friends if his bravery
be unrewarded by success. When General John-
ston was superseded by the Southern President, and
General Hood appointed in his place, there was a
very prevalent feeling throughout the North—and,
it would appear, from statements in the Richmond
journals, throughout the South also—that Mr. Davis
had made a mistake, and that either in a fit of im-
patience or acting upon misconception he had dis-
pensed with the services of one of his ablest gene-
rals, and dismissed a consummate strategist, to
make room for a mere fighter. The result appears
to vindicate the prescience of the objectors. Gen.
Sherman is reported to have had a high opinion of
Johnston, but none of Hood, and to have seized the
opportunity of Johnston's removal to march through
Georgia with the larger half of his army, leaving
the smaller half behind under General Thomas to
cope with the dashing but unwary favourite of
Mr. Jefferson Davis. It is reported on high autho-
rity—if not the highest—that the reasons given for
Johnston's removal were—first, " his failure to ar-
rest the advance of the enemy in the vicinity of
Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia ;" and,
secondly, "the non-expression of any confidence
that he could defeat or repel Sherman." Military
critics—some who are friendly to the Confederate
cause, and some who are not, but who look upon
war as a game to be scientifically criticized by those
who are competent to form an opinion—assert
that General Johnston's strategy was sound ; that
the Fabian policy was the only one he could
employ when pushed by an enemy three if
not four times his superior in numbers, and that
until the day of his removal such policy had been
pre-eminently successful, it is asserted that Gen.
Lee, whom everybody, North and South, admits to
be the first general of the age, adopted after the
battle of the Wilderness precisely the same policy
as Gen. Johnston, and gained great glory by it ;
that the relative strength of Sherman's army and
Johnston's was such that had Johnston been the
attacking party, the chances would have been in
Sherman's favour ; that at Dalton Sherman had a
fortified pass in his rear, as a place of refuge to
which he could retire in case of mishap ; that in
moving south he advanced fortifying, and that' con-
sequently he had always an intrenched position close
behind him ; that under such circumstances victory
could not have been decisive for Johnston, while
defeat would have been ruinous ; and that the true
strategy—that which Johnston employed—was to
keep near the enemy, to take advantage of any ex-
posure of himself which he might make, and to re-
pel his alniost daily partial assaults by the infliction
of much greater loss than he suffered. It is alleged
by the true friends of Gen. Johnston that he so im-
peded Sherman's marchfrom Chattanooga to Atlanta
as to hold him for 72 days in advancing 93 miles ;
and that while in successive encounters viit'h the Fe-
deral armies he inflicted a loss in killed, wounded,
and prisoners of 40,000 men, he lost but 10,000 of
his own; and that this course, if continued, would
speedily have so reduced the disparity of numbers as,
if not to have given Gen. Johnston the superiority,
to have made the ultimate battle one of equal to
equal. As regards the second allegation—not a very
serious one at the best—it is easily disposed of. No
sensible man, in high or low position, regards the em-
ployment of boastful language as evidence of merit,
or modesty as a proof of incompetency. Whether
the defence thus made for General Johnston be suffi-
cient, it is, unfortunately for the South, too clear
that its interests in Georgia and Tennessee have
suffered by his removal ; that General Hood, though
brave, has been rash ; or, if not rash, unsuccessful ;
and that the supersedure of Johnston has created
political divisions in the South, which have a ten-
dency to weaken, if they have not already weakened
the hands of the Executive.
The great Armada, as it is called, of Admiral
Porter, composed of no less than 65 vessels of war,
exclusive of 85 transports and smaller craft, and
having on board General B. F. Butler and at least
20,000—some accounts say 24,000--men detailed
from the army of the Potomac forthis special service,
has appeared off Cape Fear, bound for Wilmington.
This is the expedition which was to have started in
October, and which it was hoped would have won a
great victory before the first days of November, so
as to gain votes for Mr. Lincoln and re-seat him in
the Presidential chair, amid a blaze of triumph and
rejoicing. The necessity under which Gen. Sherman
found himself of evacuating Atlanta—attained at so
much cost and trouble, but afterwards found to be so
worthless and untenable, and his consequent retreat
through Georgia to the sea—led to the postponement
of Admiral Porter's expedition until such time as
Sherman's safety should be officially known, and his
new base upon the coast securely established. Sa-
vannah and Wilmington were then to be simulta-
neously attacked. This, it is now asserted, was the
programme arranged at Washington, with the full
concurrence enee of General Grant, Mr. Lincoln, Mr.
Stanton,m and
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Already the gold
speculators have been
the actual
and prospective victories in this curing: with such
effect as to reduce the premium from
Isawf ever,
or nearly 20 per cent. The reduction, 4ito 114,
has not been maintained, and the speculatorsor the
rise have been able to exhibit the dark side of the
picture with such success as to bring up the premium
again this morning to 127.
The shadows in the future, which the too sanguine
refuse to see, but which are obvious enough to all
who look dispassionately upon events, are that the
successes of the North, gratifying as they may be
to the popular pride, and welcome to the party
necessities of the 'Administration, will aid but little,
if it all, in the termination of the war. Already Mr.
Lincoln has confessed that he has not force enough
for the ends in view by calling for a new levy of
300,000 men, to be drawn by conscription, if there
is not patriotic zeal enough in the country to pro-
vide them by voluntary enlistment or by high boun-
' ties. It is feared also that the South, driven into a