The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-16 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AIIERICA,

(Fiona the Times' arrespondent.)
NEW YORK, MAY 2.
All doubt of the capture of New Orleans has
been at an end for the last two days. Corroborations
of the fact, though contradictory as to the details,
had arrived from so many quarters, that the natural
incredulity of an often-deceived public had yielded
to the accumulation of evidence even before the re-
ceipt this morning of the official correspondence
between Commodore Farragut, the Federal Com-
mander of the Mississippi flotilla, and Mr. Monroe,
the mayor of the city. When the news first arrived
the wonder was not so much that New Orleans
should have fallen, but that the Southern generals,
engineers, and captains of iron-clad rams and gun
-boats should not have made better use of their time
and opportunities in preparing for the defence of so
important a place, and that two days were more than
sufficient to accomplish against the commercial em-
pflrium of the South what 20days failed to accom-
plish against Island No. 10 in the comparatively
unimportant regions of the middle Mississippi. The
catastrophe is a startling, one, and has been quite as
:unexpected to the North as it must have been to the
South. It is evident from the correspondence be-
tween the Commodore and the Mayor, that the
General in command of the Confederate forces had
left the city with his whole army, as soon as he
found it to be untenable. Though the correspond-
ence give no detail, and no official reports have yet
beer received by the Federal Government, it seems,
a. far as anyclue tothe truth can be obtained through
'the maze of imperfect and eonflicting testimony
which has reached this city, principally through the
medium of Southern newspapers brought within
the Federal lines before Yorktown by runaway
negroes and deserters, that the means of attaining
this great victory were as simple as they were ex-
traordinary. Either two or a larger number of
iron-clad gunboats (some accounts say as many as
12, but not all iron-clad) succeeded in forcing their
way past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, through
a terrific yet harmless storm of shot and grape.
This impediment surmounted, they steamed
leisurely up to New Orleans, anchored in mid-
stream, and threatened either to shell the city or
cut the levee and lay it under water in case of re-
sistance. The iron-clad vessel Louisiana, con-
structed after the fashion of the Merrimac, and on
the support of which for attack or defence the Con-
federates appear to have largely calculated, was
either captured or destroyed by Commodore Farra-
gut's superior force, while the Mississippi, a second
vessel of the same kind, was scuttled to prevent her
falling into the hands of the Federals. In these
circumstances, the city lying wholly at the mercy
of the flotilla, which was riding unassailable on the
swollen river, several feet above the level of the
streets, General Mansfield Lovell resolved to save
his army, if he could save nothing else, and took
his departure, with his whole force, by the Jackson
Railway, to Camp Moore, 78 miles distant on the
road to Memphis. The Mayor, thus left without
naval or military aid, yielded, like a wise man, to
inevitable necessity as soon as he was summoned to
surrender. But, in placing the city at the mercy,
or under the protection, of the conqueror, he refused
to hoist the Stars and Stripes on the public build-
ings, or to give any orders to that effect to his
subordinates. I do not say that this is a correct
history of the capture, but it is the only intelligible
or coherent account that I am able to piece together
out of the odds and ends and loose scraps of reliable
artd unreliable information contained in the news-
'papers. Nothing has yet been heard from General
Butler, in command of the military force which was
to have operated in the rear of the city from Lake
Pontchartrain by the Shell Road ; and at the time
at which I wrote no official telegram or letter had
been received from Commodore Farragut, or any
private letters from any one engaged in the opera-
tions. I need scarcely say that all of these are
looked for with the greatest interest.
It does not appear that the desperate expedient
so often recommended to the Southern planters and
holders of cotton, and which has been so constantly
held out as a menace against England and France
to compel their recognition of the Confederacy,
has found favour either at New Orleans or any
other place invaded or captured by the Federal
armies. Not a bale has been delivered to the
flames, as far as can be ascertained, and, in all pro-
bability, the whole crop of 1861 remains available
for:the wants of Europe and of Northern States of
the Union as soon as the means of its transportation
from the interior can be regularly organised ; and,
with the command of the Lower Mississippi, lead-
ing, as it does, to that of all the tributary rivers
that pour through the cotton States into the bosom
of the Father of Waters, all difficulty in this respect
ought soon to be removed, New York, as far as
Wall-street and its operators and speculators are
concerned, is jubilant with gladness at the result.
Stocks have gone up from 93 to 98, and the certifi-
cates of indebtedness issued by the Government as
pledge of payment for any contracts and other ex-
penses of the war have found eager purchasers at
99—strong proofs of the public confidence in the
ability of the Federal Government not only to
bring the war to a successful issue, but to pay its
way hereafter. And, as if to contradict the expe-
rience of such " slow" places as London, which goes
to prove that bankers, brokers, and money-dealers
do not usually give the reins to their imagination to
lead their judgment captive, it is enthusiastically
held in Wall-street to be a matter of certainty that
the fall of New Orleans is virtually the conclusion
of the war; that before the 15th of May the Stars
and Stripes will wave triumphantly over every fort,
steeple, and public building in the restored Union;
and that a new era of floppiness and prosperity will
immediately commence—when Naw York shall be,
a 3 General Walker, of Kansas, was bold enough to
predict only four years ago, in the true style of
Buncombe, " the commercial, financial, social, and
political centre of the universe."

Simultaneously with the news of the retirement of
General Lovell from New Orleans to Camp Moore,
there comes a rumour that General Beauregard has
withdrawn from Corinth, and concentrated his forces
in the neighbourhood of Memphis. If this rumour
prove to be well founded, a desperate battle is immi-
nent at this point between the Federal army, under
General Halleek, which has been largely reinforced
since the bloody encounter at Pittsburgh Laniing,
or Shiloh, where it is now known that upwards of
20,000 men were slain on both sides, and the still
larger force under Beauregard, which fought on that
occasion with a ferocity seldom exhibited in modern
warfare, and which is likely on the next occasion to
fight with a still more desperate courage, and with
the full knowledge that defeat would be irretriev-
able ruin.

The fortunes of the South hang but on two issues.
At Yorktown and either at Corinth or at Memphis'
(most probably at the latter) its destiny will be de-
cided. If conquered in a pitched battle at either of
these places its cause will be virtually lost, and the
American Union will be restored in name, but not
in nature, and the victors, for the sake of future
harmony, will have nothing to do but to cement as
well as they can the broken fragments of dominion,
provide for the payment of their debts, and exercise
such clemency to the vanquished as sound policy no
less than humanity shall dictate. And this done, as
all the world oan see, except the Northern people,
will commence a work far more difficult than the
suppression of a civil war—the reconciliation of the
conquered to the conquerors, and the maintenance
of the form no less than of the spirit of liberty in a
state of society established against the consent of
the governed by the strong arm of military force_
A voluntary Union may be liberty, but what is a
compulsory Union but despotism ? And if despotism,
wholly or in part, be established, what is the great
Democratic Republic of Washington and Jefferson
but a dream of the past, as dead es the Heptarchy ?
Fort Macon, the capture of which was erroneously
announced some weeks ago, after the fall of New-
bern,yiElded to the arms of General Burnside on
Friday, the 25th of April. The event was long
anticipated, and has excited no interest.
Fort Sumter is now the only place of historical
importance on the Atlantic seaboard that floats
the Confederate Hag. To restore the Stars and
Stripes to their ancient pre-eminence on that for-
tress, and to bring the war home to the streets of
the last sweet 11
the peccant city of Charleston, is