The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-05 00:00:00

and persistently refused his aid to do the coarsest
work of the camp, the Irishman had, in addi-
tion to this repugnance, a jealousy of the black
man as a rival and competitor. The negro respects
the white man who employs and feeds him, but he
has no respect for the Irish white man, who conde-
scends to do such rough and unskilled work as pub-
lic opinion reserves for the inferior race. There is
consequently a mutual antipathy between the two;
and the Irishman detests the negro, not only be-
cause he is a negro, but because he believes that
there ought to be no " niggers" in the North to
keep down the price of free labour. and that the
South is the proper place for the black man and
slavery his proper condition. The recent determi-
nation of the Federal Government to employ the
negroes in trenching and fortification, and in the
sanitary occupationsnnmbero necessaryofthem from
in
it has been generally accepted by the Americans as
a disagreeable necessity, has displeased the Irish,
and operated as one of the causes preventing any
considerable
fr
oaml camps,responding
to
the President's invitation. Patrick's love of a fight
is proverbial; and he engaged himself in the civil
war with all the heartiness of good will which was
expected of him by those who knew him best. But,
though he loves a " seri " mmage a' great deal, he
loves good wages a great deal better.. Half-a-dollar
a day for fighting was excellent pay, but a dollar
and a quarter a day for r • eaping became still 'more
tempting, when negro competition was thrown into
the war scale against him. So,
,for the present, he
is a man of peace, and Mr. Lincoln can only secure
him for the war upon compulsion.
The Germans, who have also formed a very large
percentage of the Federal armies, have objections
to enlistment peculiar to themselves. They do not
share the Irishman's dislike of the negro. They
have no overweening and overpowering love for the
Union, right or wrong, such as burns in the bosoms
of Americans of the " spread-eagle"school of oratory
and politics. They entered into the war as a matter
of business, because a military life is germane to
most Germans accustomed to Austrian or Prussian
conscriptions, and because they had an idea that in
a great democratic Republic, where the poorest citi-
zen is as good as the President, and the private sol-
dier is supposed to be as good a man, politically and
socially, as the Commander-in-Chief, they might
rise by merit and valour to the highest ranks, like
the soldiers of the First Napoleon. This hope has
been disappointed. Soldiers have not been made
captains and colonels from the ranks. Democratic
America is aristocratic as regards military promo-
tion.

Political Generals swarm in every city. There
are Brigadiers without number who have no bri-
gades. A whole squad of attorneys—Butler and
Halleck among the number—have risen to the
highest rank, at one bound, without having passed
through the intermediate gradations; but the great
bulk of the commissioned officers are graduates of
Westpoint—a class apart, to mix with whom is
about as difficult for the American common soldier
as for the private in the British army to reach any
rank higher than that of sergeant-major. The con-
sequence is that the Germans are disgusted. The
war is not the war they imagined it would be. It
offers them no career. Fifty cents a day, and the
chances of death or mutilation, with 100 dols. at the
end of three years, if they live, are not sufficient
inducement to lure them from the farm, the barber's
shop, the lager beer brewery, and the other com-
mercial pursuits in which both in the West and the
East their countrymen continue to make decent
fortunes. The first bloom of the war excitement
is over as far as they are concerned ; and, though
40 per cent., perhaps, of the 100,000 men that
State and Federal bounty money may yet gleam
from the full harvest-field of labour will be com-
posed of Germans, there is no chance of any further
supply of men from that source, except under the
operation of the conscription.
Altogether the indications of public feeling con-
verge to the idea of an approaching compromise.
No American will admit this to be the case when
broadly stated, especially to an Englishman; but
there are countless little straws in the air which
show how the wind blows to any one who has an
eye for the points of the compass. Three months
ago when several regiments wished to inscribe upon
their regimental flags the names of their victo-
ries the idea was universally scouted. " What,"
said the patriots,:" shall we perpetuate upon the
star-spangled banners of our liberty the record of
our triumphs over our fellow-citizens ? IV hen we
go to war with England or France our flags shall
bear the names of our victories, but in a war against
our brethren—never !" Now the feeling has
changed, end the South begins to be looked upon as
a foreign nation ; and " Roanoke," " Newbern,”
" Fort Donelson," " Fair Oaks," and other words
are flaunted upon Federal flags with as much
Northern pride as if the Southerners were really the
foreigners which it is their wish to become. So also
with regard to a general exchange of prisoners. The
South, when appealed to on this matter, invariably
refused to listen to any terms unless upon full re-
cognition of their belligerent rights. The North as
invariably refused, for this would be to admit that
the South were not " rebels," but an independent
Power with whom the Republic was engaged in a
legitimate war. This feeling also has undergone a
modification, and on Friday last no less a person
than General Dix went from Fortress Monroe,
under the protection of a flag of truce, to meet the
Confederate General Lee, for the purpose of debat-
ing the terms for a permanent exchange of pri-
soners. The interview is described as having been
highly satisfactory both to North and South. Per-
haps the slackness of the Federal enlistments may
have tended to the production of this better frame
of mind, for prisoners require men to guard them ;
and men employed on such duty are not available
in the battle. field. If, when the exchange is
effected, both parties are released upon the honour-
able understanding that they are to take no further
part in the war, it will tend still further to humanise
the people of both sections, and draught into civil
life a number of good hands that are greatly needed
for peaceful work, and more especially in the South,
where every young and able .bodied man is a com-
batant.

-----
The public has been greatly scandalised during
the last week by the series of charges brought
against General Mitchell, the astronomer of Cin-
cinnati—charges of incapacity, ferocity, and
brutality—involving details that are said to be ut-
terly unfit for publication. Further investigation
has shown that the worst of these charges did not
apply to General Mitchell personally, but to an offi-
cer under his command for whose conduct he was
more or less responsible. The charges will, doubt-
less form a subject for the investigation of a court-
martial, and if substantial cannot but end in the
dismissal of General Mitchell from the service, and
the hanging, on a high gallows, of Colonel Turchin,
the officer principally implicated. Leaving for the
present the minor charges against General Mitchell,
and coming to those affecting Colonel Turchin, a
German, from Cincinnati, it appears that when
General Mitchell was in command at Huntsville, in
proceed, with Alabama, he ordered Turchin to a
considerable force, to the pleasant t little
- .own of
Athens, 25 miles distant, and reduce it to obedience
to Federal authority. Athens made an n 0,,,,,,;,;
but obstinate resistance, which so exasperated- unavailing
chin that just before the place was
his soldiers soldiers that "he would shut captured he told
hours" after they took it. The his ey esfor two
Northern Alabama, on hi . town is situated in
Its coolness renders it
an gil and healthy ground.
resi-
dence, and it contains the agreeable summer
high school for you finest and
most celebrated
young ladies '
charge is that While T ain all the South. The
town was plundered, urchin "shut his eyes," the
the school, and that the young ladies at
daughters of some of the . .al peo-
ple in Alabama,
I Were subjected to atrocities that
the tongue may
write or the y name, but that the pen may not
e printing press divulge, except by peri-