The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-06 00:00:00

how its evacuation by General Lee's army is in the
end inevitable." While this conversation was in
progress a telegram arrived from General Butler on
the north side of the James, announcing to General
Grant that the " Richmond Examiner of this morn-
ing anticipates that Sherman will get safe to the
sea coast."

I can assure General Grant that if he was in a

position to arrive at the undisguised opinion of Pre-
sident
Davis and General Lee he would come to a
conclusion different from that which he last week
expressed, but which it is difficult to believe that he
sincerely entertains. It is the deliberate coniactiow
not only of the two eminent men in question, but

also of eighteen-twentieths of the inhabitants o
Richmond and of ninety-nine-hundredths of the
army which defends it, that the city was never so
safe since the war commenced as at the present mo-
ment. It seems to all men of sense that every time
that Grant has made a tentative movement, either
with cavalry or infantry, or by subterranean
mines, or any other aggressive device, and has
been foiled with considerable loss .of life, he
has had more than a quarter of a step back-
ward. How many of these attacks have been
foiled since June.last it is difficult to compute. But
against all these failures, spread over the last live
and a-half months, Grant has nothing to advance
as a makeweight, except the slight but immaterial
advance of his lines upon the Weldon Railroad, and
the capture of Port Harrison on the 29th September.
No one is probably better aware than General Grant
that these two slight advantages have not brought
him an inch nearer to the capture of Richmond. He
is now confronted by a frowning line of earthworks,
which stretches for 33 or 34 miles, commencing at
the Chicahominy River, extending across the James,
and running close up to the Weldon Railroad on
the west of Reams' Station. I may be mistaken,
but, in common with every Confederate officer I
have conversed with on both sides of the James, it
is my belief that against any portion of these lines
Grant's army, even if doubled in number, will never
prevail. The difficulty and danger of attempting
to get round either or both of General Lee's flanks
at points where the Confederates are operating upon
the inner circle is obviously very great. I anticipate
that if Grant's army receives very material accession
of strength before April and during next summer,
the siege of Richmond will be protracted through the
whole of next year. If he is not heavily reinforced
by next spring, we shall see whether he will pass
through 1865 without taking several quarter steps
backward. But, be that as it may, it is already
seen and felt that the advantages to the Confede-
rates of carrying on a defensive struggle so close to
their heart as Richmond are obvious and mani-
fold. The blood propelled through the great aorta
is far larger in volume than the blood which circu-
lates through the temporal artery, and the vigilance
necessitated by the close proximity of the enemy is
of eminent benefit to this brave, but carelesS com-
munity. In addition, the long-protracted struggle
around Richmond gives the Confederates time to
duplicate such establishments as the Tredegar Works,
and to inagurate supplementary measures for creat-
ing munitions of war all over the country. It never
seems to have entered General Grant's head that the
capture of Richmond will be to him and his associ-
ates but the letting out of strife. But Gen. Grant's
words are robbed of half thelr significance when it
is remembered that they were addressed to a gentle-
man who would in three or four days be in commu-
nication with the Richmond authorities. It is diffi-
cult not to suspect that Grant shares with his wily
countrymen the sentiment so admirably expressed
in Milton's lines

"Our better part remains
"To work in close design by fraud or guile
" What force effected not."

If Mr. Davis and General Lee could be cajoled by
by flattery and undermined in faith by unscrupulously
boastful anticipations, nothing but good could result
to General Grant and his employers. As matters
stand the Federals have to face or explain away the
fact that the mighty host which Grant led across
Rapidan last May has failed either to give him Rich-
mond, or even " to fight it out on the same line, if it
took all the summer." Summer and autumn have
passed away, and winter is upon us. In a few months
the summer of 1865 will be here, and on what line
does General Grant then propose to fight it out ?
There can be few Northerners gullible enough to
believe that when General Grant began his advance
against Richmond, nearly eight months ago, sup-
ported by between 200,000 and 300,000 men, he
expected to find himself wintering on the James
River, in command of a fifth of that force, and with
Richmond as obstinately closed against him as ever.
I can emphatically assert that be General Grant's
anticipations about his prospects what they may, I
remember no moment during more than 26 months