The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-16 00:00:00

CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, JUNE 29.
Almost any kind of man—if he be but young and
strong, and can be drilled into obedience—is good
enough for the horrible work of war. The Northern
states have been blessed, or cursed, during the con-
tinuance of their bitter conflict with the South
with a superabundant supply of such "food for
Powder." All Europe has been their provider. For
20 years, in numbers annually augmenting, the
moral halt and blind, the reckless, the disaffected,
the brutal, the disappointed, the broken in means
and character of all nations have fled to New
York and Boston, like the vagabonds of old to
David in the cave of Adullum, and have leavened
the. whole mass of the pre-existing American people
with corruption and insolence. This class, aug-
Ynented by the usual supply of native vice and
blackguardism that exists in all great cities,
whether in the Old World or the New, gave much
trouble to the local authorities prior to the war,
and designated itself by names that were hideously-
suggestive of its character, " Blood-tubs," "
" rowdies," "dead rabbits," " swipers,"
" spigots," " maulers," were but a few of the epi-
thets by which they chose to be known, and under
which they figured in the newspapers in constantly
recurring cases of brutal assaults or robberies and
assassinations. When the war broke out this class,
allured not only by the high pay and bounty money,
but by the innate love of violence, enlisted in large
numbers, and were the men who, by their want of
discipline, inflicted upon the Republic the humilia-
tion of Bull Run. Since that day the Federal
Generals, and more especially General M'Clellan,
have converted such of them as the war has spared
into very good soldiers ; and the cities of the North,
relieved of their presence, have been far more or-
derly and quiet than they were ever known to be
within living memory. So far the war has not
been an unmixed evil to the North, though the
behaviour of but too many of these men in Vir-
ginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and other States,
invaded and occupied by their arms, has been
such as to embitter still more the already bitter
hatred of the South towards the Yankees. The
German recruits appear to have behaved the worst.
In the Valley of the Shenandoah, one division of
them, under Gen. Blenke, has misconducted itself
so abominably in plundering the people and com-
mitting other excesses as to have introduced into
the English language, as spoken in America, the
new word " blenkerism." When a henroost has
been robbed it has been " blenkered," and when a
farmer's wife has been despoiled of forage, food, or
milk, and grossly insulted when she demanded pay-
ment, she has suffered " blenkerism." To such a
height had the evil arisen in this department, and
so powerless was General Bleaker to put an end to
it, that it has been found necessary to break up his
command and draught the men into other regiments.
But, if such misconduct be odious in the private
soldier, what is the befitting epithet to apply to the
officers, who habitually use profane and disgusting
language to their men, and set them the example of
habitual intoxication ? A correspondent of the
Tribune, writing from Manassas Junction, speaks
of officers who, when about to lead their men into
battle, make themselves " beastly drunk." Are
such officers to be considered mere blackguards, or
are they to be held as cowards, who resort to the
stimulus of strong liquor to work themselves up to
the fighting point ? The same correspondent tells
of a Brigadier-General, who was formerly a tempe-
rance lecturer, who appears before his men so drunk
that he can hardly sit upon his horse, and who
uses language when giving his orders too vulgar
and profane to be repeated even in jest in a bar-
room. He also draws the picture of the chaplain
of a regiment who exhibits himself " dead
drunk" at his duty. He declares this and other
pictures to be by no means overdrawn, and adds
that he lacks language to express the facts with
sufficient strength and definiteness for the public
ear. Were any correspondent of the Times to
make such charges they would be hailed with a shout
of execration all over the country, and ascribed to
the malignity of the English people and aristocracy,
that invented such slanders to damage the cause of
the Republic. But, if the charges are to be denied,
it is right to understand that they are not made by
Englishmen, but by Americans. " I know," con-
tinues the same writer, " of Quartermasters who en-
courage soldiers to steal horses and turn them over,
and they then sell them to officers and army strag-
glers, and hangers on, who follow different divisions,
disbursing counterfeit money, and swindling citi-
zens and soldiers. Donations sent to soldiers have
been sold by sutlers and commissaries. Molasses,
vinegar, salt, coffee, sugar, and various other articles
are often issued at less than regulation quantities,
and the surplus sold for private benefit. Army
contractors follow brigades with droves of cattle
that rather increase in numbers as they advance,
and receive pay from Government for every pound
issued, thereby increasing the stigma that rests too
truthfully on us of being thieves and spoilers.
Almost every tent and guard-house and shade-tree
in the vicinity of a camp is a gambling resort for a
few days after pay-day, and the most loathsome
vices are practised by the very men who occupied
respectable positions before entering the army.
What," he inquires, " will be the effect on society
when 700,000 men are discharged from the army to
return to their homes without occupation, many of
them reckless in the most emphatic sense of the
term ? " The reply is—though the American peo-
ple are not yet in a position to admit its truth—
that the army will never be disbanded. " Brother
Jonathan," who boasts that he can make anything,
and whose mechanical ingenuity is unquestioned, is
in the deplorable position of Frankenstein : he has
wade his monster, and can neither kill nor govern
it—a monster that must be fed, amused, and em-
ployed. After the civil war is ended, either by the
subjugation or the independence of the South, it will
either eat up Mexico, Cuba, the West Indies and
British America, or the liberties of the American
people. Perhaps all of these dainties—the last the
sweetest of all—will not be too much for its insatia-
ble stomach. The prospect is not pleasant for Euro-
peans, still less for the few Americans who are not so
blinded by military
passion to be unable to see liberty,
that peace, prosperity, and progress are
utterly incompatible with such an army and with
the pecuniary burdens that will be necessary to
support it.
four weeks that will
During the elapse between
this and the Ist of August Preside11. Lincoln will
.have at his disposal a greater number of places than
ever fell at one time into the gift of
any Govern-
ment unborn of a violent revolution. By the pro-
visions of the TaX Bill he has the power to divide
every State in the Union into districts for the Der-
poses of taxation, the districts not to exceed in num_
bear that of the representatives of the State in eat..
grass. To each district there
•
is to be an assessor, a
collector, and several clerks or ass'stants. These
districts are to be subdivided or subdivisible as con-
venience may dictate; each sub-district to have its
At the
deputy assessor, collector, and assistants•
lowest calculation about 3,000 employes of Internal
Revenue will be required. If it pleases the President
to be very liberal in providing for his friends or for
those of his Ministers and the prominent members
of his party, the number may reach 4,000 and up-
wards, with salaries ranging from 1,000 to 4,000
dolls. per annum, besides fees and percentages. What
a rush and scramble there will immediately be to-
wards Washington ! What innumerable lies will be
told by the office-sekers ! What unknown, but no
longer modest merit, will push and strive and
thrust itself into notice ! What fountains of good
nature will be tapped in Congress and elsewhere to
draw off testimonials of ability and integrity in
favour of incompetenthungry candidates ! What a herd of
exPeetants will bound towards the capital
like buffa.oes to
" stampede " a "salt lick in the prairies ! The
from Ball Run will be as nothing to it.
Every one of the MY or hundred thousand appli-
cants from whom thefortunate three or four thou-
sandwill be selected
m to be a true patriot,
a true friend o
f the Union, „,,d
nd a voter for Abraham 14-
, above all, a fast sup-
,porter of a uicoln. Unlucky
and far more unlucky
President ! eountry on which
this swarm of worse than moaquit
in its c'ee is to be let
, irritate
and Ise for the first time history t • •tate
and: inflame the hc) dy politic, and sack the
-