The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-20 00:00:00

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revived, at least in Virginia, the fervid passion
which glowed in every Virginian heart when Mr.
Lincoln's proclamation of 1861 roused the Old Do-
minion to flame. Upon the 6th and 9th inst. the two
greatest and most excited popular assemblies which
this city has ever witnessed listened on the former
day to President Davis and on the latter to Mr.
Benjamin. In words weighty from the intensity of
feeling with which they were uttered, and which
dropped like solid shot among the listening thousands,
President Davis told his audience that they might
have peace if they would accept a Yankee satrap in
every State, a Yankee emissary in every Southern
Post-office, and if the soldiers among them would
pluck off their uniforms and hand over the individual
who was then speaking to them, and Gen. Lee, and
a thousand other soldiers whose names are engraven
on every Southern heart to the well-known clemency
and liberality of President Lincoln. But it was re-
served for Mr. Benjamin to demonstrate upon the
9th inst. that the reputation which he has long en-
joyed as one of the greatest orators of this continent
is not in jeopardy because for nearly four years his
voice has been hushed in public. Boldly grappling
with the question of negro enlistment, Mr. Benja-
min demanded what the South would have done had
she known three years ago that at the end of 1864
Mr. Lincoln would announce that he could not carry
on the war without 200,000 negro soldiers stolen
froth Southern plantatiohs. You have to decide, he
said, between admitting emancipated negroes to the
ranks, or the evacuation of Richmond. 'He depre-
cated the notion-of negroes being forced to fight'as
slaves, as a sure method of recruiting the ranks of
the enemy. Give them, he argued, the option of
volunteering and fighting as freemen for their own
homes and the soil where they have been raised, or of
being abducted by the Federals as the country is
overrun, and fighting, according to the new fashion
of Northern emancipation, whether they like it or
not as freemen for the North. For 100 years and
more Richmond has been renowned for her orators,
but never in the history of this proud old State has
the public heart so leapt up to meet a speaker, so
responded to his every utterance and sentiment, as
when upon the 6th and 9th of February cheer after
cheer greeted President Davis and Mr. Benjamin,
and hurled back in fierce renunciationthe contemptu-
ous overtures of Mr. Lincoln. For the moment the
war spirit of 1861 has driven speculators, money-
grabbers, and extortioners into the shade. At no pre-
vious stage of the war have I felt so painfully impressed
by the dark uncertainty of the future; but I never had
less hesitation than at this moment in assuring the
North that their work is not more than half done,
and that they are counting upon a victory as already
secured which it will yet cost them thousands of
lives to consummate.
There is little interest or profit in trying to re-
fasten the links of a broken chain, or in tracing step
by step the progress of an abortive negotiation.
But I may be permitted to say, in allusion to the
opinion expressed in my letter of the 23d January
(to the effect that peace, on the basis of nominal
recognition of Southern independence, and offensive
and defensive affiance between the two belligerents,
in addition to many other concessions to the North,
was not impossible), that a belief wad distinctly en-
couraged by Mr. Blair during his two informal visits
to Richmond that such terms were not inadmissible,
and that if it had been known that President Lin-
coln's ultimatum was reconstruction, no Southern
Commissioners would have methim at Fortress Mon-
roe. Nevertheless, there is general satisfaction at the
thought that Southern Commissioners have heard
from Mr. Lincoln's own lips that peace is only pro-
curable by means of abject submission, that he de-
signs to write Vm victis from the Capes of the
Chesapeake to the Gulf of Mexico, and will mete
out to rebels who sue to him on their knees such
mercy as Edward 111. would have extended to the
burgesses of Calais when they knelt before him
with halters round their necks. An answer has thus
been given to those sanguine diplomatists who be-
lieved with Mr. Stephens that discussions about
peace between authorised agents of either Govern-
ment could only end in an armistice. That this

incident has had the effect upon Virginia, con-
verting it again into a sea of fire, it is impossible
to doubt ; nor can it be wholly without its influence
even upon the timorous property-savers and slavish
submissionists of half-hearted Georgia. " The popu-
lation is whipped," writes a lady from Georgia,
" but not so the army nor the women ; and, by the
blessing of God, whipped they never will be."
It is my belief that the military resistance to
Sherman, when he advances, will be faint and
insignificant until new Generals get hold of the
remains of the army of Tennessee and infuse fresh
life and vigour into it. But for the present there is
no way of fighting the invader half so efficiently as
by burning the cotton wherever it is in danger of
falling into his hands. There is little doubt that
Gen. D. H. Hill will burn every bale in Augusta if
Sherman threatens it ; and, if the spirit which ani-
mates Richmond prevails everywhere, it is possible li
that in the next 12 months President Lincoln and
his armies may gain military possession of the South
—but in that case he will regain nothing but forcible
possession of countries of which he sways only the
ground where his armies stand—of provinces im-
poverished, depleted, and reft of all their wealth ; of
plantations to which their former prosperity cannot
be restored for years ; of negroes, suddenly converted
into free American citizens, from whom labour, more
than sufficient for their Own support, cannot be
coaxed or extorted.

It is idle to talk of the movements of Sherman
when writing from Richmond. Nothing has so much
impressed me during my recent visit to the south as
the ignorance of Richmond in regard to everything
outside of the army of Northern Virginia—theig-
norance of Charleston save in respect to South Ca-
rolina—the ignorance of Augusta save in respect to
Georgia. It is believed here that Sherman is
threatening Columbia, that General Beauregard,
with a respectable force, is facing him in that neigh-
bourhood, and that for the present the Federals
have no design to attack Augusta. But at any mo-
ment this programme may be altered if Columbia,
shall fall into Sherman's hands. As matters stand it
is not impossible that Sherman will drive Beauregard's
forces northwards into North Carolina, and that there
will be a junction between the army of Beauregard,
the Confederate forces at Wilmington, andthe garri-
son of Charleston, if, as now seems probable, that city
is abandoned. The tendency of the Confederate
armies seems to be to coalesce, and.it is possible that
the larger the force brought under the control or in-
fluence of Gen. Lee, the happier will be the result in
the interest of the Confederates. Such is, I know, the
opinion of several excellent military heads, and the
difficulty in regard to feeding such an army will be
solved in a manner which I will explain in a subse-
quent letter.

In conclusion, let what may be doubtful, I think I
can promise Mr. Lincoln, that he has in Gen. Lee's
army a nut to crack which will severely try the jaws
not only of Gen. Grant, but also' of Gen. Sherman.
It has been my fortune during the last week to be
much thrown among officers of Gen. Lee's army,
whom I have met either in Petersburg orßichmond.
There meets me one unanimous assurance that, since
the day when it was made patent to these war-
wearied soldiers that peace is only to be obtained
upon such terms as involve infamy, a new and
irresistible fire of indignation and resistance has
warmed every heart. Already the fierce fighting of
1865 has commenced—the prelude to a campaign
which Gen. Longstreet anticipates will be the most
bloody and truculent of all that this desolated con-
tinent has witnessed. Upon the very night when
the Southern Commissioners passed through this
camp upon their road to Richmond Gen. Grant
moved three-fourths of his army upon Lee's right
flank, and threatened the railway which connects
Petersburg with the Danville Railway, This move-
ment, which was undertaken by three or four Fede-
ral corps, was promptly met by three Confederate