The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-17 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

• (From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 31.

Two of the ablest and most prominent public men
of the North have lately expressed their opinion on
the state of affairs—the one privately and confiden-
tially, but in words that have been promulgated far
and near by the press ; the other openly, before an
audience of 5,000 of his fellow-citizens. The first
was Gen. Sherman ; the second, Gen. Butler. The
one has the genius of silence, the other the talent of
oratory. When either speaks America is glad to lis-
ten. In the one case it expects to hear wisdom, and in
the other to be made acquainted with principles, if
not with secrets. In neither instance has it been
disappointed.
Gen. Sherman thoroughly understands his coun-
trymen. Undazzled by his present enormous popu-
larity, he estimates their favour at its true value.
He also understands the South, and for that reason
is not led away by the sanguine hopes of a restora-
tion of the Union which have driven all classes of
the Northern people well nigh wild with exultation.
In a confidential discourse with a correspondent of
the World at Savannah, and published at full length
in that journal of yesterday, though, doubtless, with-
out the General's permission, he stated his opinion
on the subject of popularity. " As to the popularity
you speak of," said he,. " I know very well of what
stuff it is made. lam popular as long as lam suc-
cessful. Not only the American press, but the Lon-
don papers, praise me as the great General of the
age. Why? Because I have crossed a great extent
of country, and by a long and perilous march have
caused an important city to fall into our hands. All
this is very well. But suppose, in the campaign I
am about to undertake, I meet the combined forces
of Lee, Beauregard, and Hardee, and fail ; what
would be my fate then ? Why-, every laurel I
have won, everything I have done, would be for-
gotten. There would not be a tree high enough to
hang me upon. I should be dragged clown from
the pillar of fame to rot in obscurity in some
remote corner of the west ; and the great general
would be a failure, an impostor." The incidental re-
velation herein contained is as instructive as the
philosophy of the whole passage. Possibly, had he
known that his words were to be flashed through
the country over the telegraphic wires, the General
would havehave been more reticent, and possibly,too,
if the same correspondent should again trust himself
within the lines, he may receive a different reception.
Being asked if he did not think the war was nearly
at an end, the General replied "At an end ! The
war at an end ! So far from being at an end, the
war is only about to begin. The policy of giving up
their river and coast cities, although taking away
some of the prestige of the Confederacy, is making
it materially stronger than if it retained them in its
possession ; while the opening of the same cities to
trade by the Federal Government is efficiently sup-
plying the rebels with all the goods they used to re-
ceive by blockade-runners, at a cheaper price and
with less risk and inconvenience to themselves." As
the lippinion thus expressed by General Sherman
happens to be the opinion of General Lee, the world
need not be much astonished to hear at no distant
day that Charleston and Wilmington have shared
the fate of Savannah, that the war of Southern in-
dependence has entered its second period, and that
greater events than any which have preceded will
signalise the progress of the opening campaign.
General Butler's speech to his fellow-citizens at
Lowell was of a different character, though scarcely
less important than the unstudied admissions of
General Sherman. It was not only a laboured vin-
dication of his own military career, but a studied
denunciation of General Grant. Having disdain-
fully brushed away the accusations brought against
him by the co-operating admiral at Fort Fisher,
and spoken of them as " the froth which is always
the accompaniment of too lively porter," he reite-
rated in a manner not to be mistaken his previous
innuendo that General Grant was criminally waste-
ful of human life. He accepted the depreciatory
epithet
of the "hero of Big Bethel and Fort Fisher,"
which his enemies had launched at him. " I am
content—nay, I claim," he said, " to be the hero of
the comparatively bloodless attack on Big Bethel,
and of the wholly bloodless failure of Fort Fisher.
But I do not claim to be the hero of Fredericksburg,
of Chancellorsville, of the Chickahominy, of the
Wilderness, of Coal Harbour, nor of that charnel-
house of useless dead in the mine before Petersburg."
Returning to the subject, he said, " The explosion
at the Dutch Gap Canal did not, perhaps, make so
large a hole as the explosion of the mine at Peters-
burg, but it was not filled like that with American
dead until it ran blood." Nor was the charge of
cruelty and unnecessary waste of the lives of his
soldiers the only one he bro-ught against his supe-
rior. He openly accused them of thwarting all
efforts for the exchange of prisoners between North
and South, and of purposely and unfairly leading
the Confederate Commissioner astray upon the
subject, and of consequently causing the death
in
Southern prisons of many thousands of Federal
soldiers. It is difficult to see how Generalh Grant
can can permit such assertions to be made without
de-
manding a court-martial either
upon
upon his assailant, or how Mr. Lincoln call suffer a
or
Major-General to remain in the service who utters
crest dpi sr ae ,sffe encetei ono
f,
words so obviously calculatedin
theto
if not to stir up a mutiny,
the enemy.
o Lincoln,
General Butler, though bitter against Grant and
contemptuous against Porter, was careful to breathe
no word of dispaanraygempeeanete awigatinh stthAlre
suth
as no t
.
Disbelievingin
conquered by the sword, he urged his
that
was
auditors to sustain the Government with all their
energies, and to put their utmost confidence in the
President, a man who was alike " honest, patriotic,
and capable." He had no faith in the recruitment
of the Federal armies by means of large bounties,
for large bounties had ultimately to be paid by the
people, and, besides being a heavy burden upon the i
poor, had the fatal dioadvantage of not procuring the

~~~~~

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' services of the best men. Neither did the GenerC7---
seem to be in favour of a forced conscription. His
method was, like himself, clear and Preeisedieither:
more nor less than an offer to every voluhfeer .4 ac
certain portion of Southern soil, which he proposed
to divide among the conquerors, as William the
Norman divided among his captains and followers
the acres of the Saxon
people of England. It is
likely that the General's method, if adopted, would
be popular, and that the scramble for Southern
plantations would not be so exclusively left to Irish-
men and Germans as the scramble for bounty money,
but would be shared by a rush of New Englanders
and Down Easters, glad to exchange the hard rock
and bleak skies of their own bitter corner of the
Union for the fertile lands and balmy skies of the
South. General Butler sees as far before him as the
acutest Yankee of them all, and his plans and opinions
may prove to be pioneers,
and prepare a way in
which the public will be apt to follow.
Butler has but few friends in the day of his dis-
grace, and will probably have fewer still if he be
dismissed from the army. He has already disco-
vered what General Sherman expects to discover if
he do not continue to gain victories—that popular
favour is no better than Caius Marcius found it in
Rome, and that it is as safe " to swim with fins of
" lead" as to depend upon it. Some- of the slavish
Journals which in the plenitude of his power were
ready to apotheosize him as the incarnation of
nect aspa-
trioticin loyalty, the model of soldierly virtue, and
the only true and incorruptible Cato of the Re-
ascertained him to be as deficient
Re-
public,
intellect
ll have now
a base nature,
hyonesty. True to the instincts of
the
refraining to hit a manspurn
wthheengehneerisousdnwobnligaatnidonmotf
the harder on that very account. They degrade
their former Apollo into a gorilla, and shower
against him all the vituperativevere ehpeitinhetsmiliof
military
over-copious vocabulary. v
command of New York, as in the days before
Mr. Lincoln's re-election, they would grovel at his
feet, as they did then ; but now that he and military
power seem to be separated for ever, they call upon
the Federal Government to have him shot for in-
citementor to mutiny, as an example to every soldier
and officer in the service. But Butler, rightly
wrongly, intends to make a noise in the world, and
threatens to create a much greater pother when out
of office than ever he created when in command.

The question of the draught in this city excites
increasing interest, and, it must be added, ill-will.
It is not only peace journals like the Daily News,
and war-Democratic but anti-Administration jour-
nals like the World and the Express, but such
thorough supporters of the Government as the Tri-
bune and the New York Times that expresses their
sense of the impolicy, if not the injustice, of con-
tinually changing the estimate of the number to be
provided by New York. It is true that a draught
has been so often threatened without having been
enforced, that the working classes, to whom it is
most distasteful, and on whom the burden will fall
most heavily, have accustomed themselves of late to
regard the cry as of no more consequence than the
shepherd boy's alarm of " Wolf !" in the fable ; but
the need of the Government for men is this time so
pressing, and recruiting by bounty has so egregiously
failed in providing soldiers, either in quantity or in
quality, that the alarm now entertained is far more
real than on any previous occasion. To add to the
unpopularity of the draught, there is a prevalent
suspicion that the assessment upon the city is
unfair, and is intended as a punishment upon
the labouring classes, who with almost complete
unanimity cast their votes for General M'Clellan
at the Presidential election. Though no Govern-
ment could be so stupid as to act in such a
manner without deserving to be ignominiously
expelled from power, the absurdity of the sus-
picion does not prevent it from being generally
entertained by the many, and industriously com-
mented upon and circulated by the few, until
there has grown up a state of irritation in a high
degree dangerous to the public peace. There are
but 15 days before the draught must be enforced
if Mr. Lincoln will not give way. In the mean-
while his principal supporter in the daily press, the
New York Times, states emphatically that " if the
enforcement do not lead to riots and bloodshed, it
will not be the fault of men in position and influ-
ence." Both the people and the owners of real
estate complain bitterly of the new assessment of
the quota, from 4,400 to 21,000. It is impossible
now to raise even the smaller number by means of
bounties of $l,OOO a head between this and the 15th
February, and if the number be not reduced and the
time greatly extended, there is much reason to
dread that when the first labourer shall be forcibly
taken from his home to be converted into a soldier
there will be an insurrection in this troublesome city
of worse augury for the final success of the Federal
cause than the defeat of Grant or Sherman.