The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-05 00:00:00

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IIE CIVIL WAR IN Alfta ' ' ty-
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(From the Times' Correspondenrr7--4-
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NEW YORK, Ap421.11,
The people of America continue to mourn their
murdered President. The grief is as profound and
universal as it was on the day after the assassina-
tion. All the little venial faults and imperfections of
the good but not brilliant man, so cruelly snatched
away, are, forgotten upon his tomb, and the public
sorrow seems as if veneration and affection were
feelings too cold and tame to meet the requirements
of his memory, and as if nothing short of canonisa-
tion would satisfy their huge desire to enshrine him
for ever in the national heart. On Wednesday, the
day of the funeral at Washington, the streets of
New York were nothing but parts of one immense
catafalque. A stranger sailing into the City across
its beautiful bay might, if he had known nothing of
the awful tragedy of the 14th, have imagined at
first glimpse of the thousands of flags flying from
the multitudinous shipping in the Hudson and
the East Rivers, from the spires of the churches,
and from the housetops as far as the eye could
reach, all clear and distinct against the clear blue
sky of as lovely a spring morning as ever dawned
upon the earth, that the day was one of rejoicing
for some great victory, or the final restoration of
Peace and Union. A second glimpse would have
shown him his error, the flags were all half-mast
high, and the red, white, and blue of the starry
banner were fringed with funereal black. In the
city itself every house was draped and hung with
crape, or with festoons of white and black inter-
mingled, over doors and windows, and in many in-
stances almost covering the whole façade of the
building. The poorest hovel in the Irish and negro
districts vied with the most magnificent mansions
in the Fifth Avenue or Broadway, in the display of
these trappings of woe. It looked as if the city had
been smitten with a plague—as if in every house of
that wilderness of human habitations there lay the
corpse of a father, or of the eldest born ; and that
people, like the Egyptians when similarly afflicted,
were humbling themselves in sackcloth and in ashes,
to petition the Divine Father of all mercy that His
wrath might pass away, and that never again so
heavy a hand might be laid upon them for their
transgressions. The same sincere grief was manifested
in a similar way all over the country. The people
felt as if they were but one family, and that in losing
their chief Magistrate they had really lost their
father. There was no affectation, or false pretence,
or theatrical display in the matter. Abraham Lin-
colnwas mourned from the heart and in the affection
of America ; not even the great name of George
Washington will hereafter overshadow or make dim
his memory.
It would have been better, perhaps, if one funeral
ceremony had been made to suffice; and if the good
President had been interred under the dome of the
Capitol of Washington as Wellington was under the
dome of St. Paul's. But it was otherwise decided,
mainly by the representations made to the afflicted
widow by some influential people from Illinois who
happened to be in Washington on the day of the
murder, and who urged that Abraham Lincoln be-
longed to Illinois, and ought to be buried at Spring-
field among his own people, and in the little town
where he practised law and won his way to emi-
nence. These counsels prevailed, and the body, with
a long funeral cortege, is to make a tour of the
country for upwards of 1,500 miles—from Wash-
ington to Springfield—and to lie in state at all the
principal cities on the route, New York included.
Though many arrests have been made, Booth has
so far succeeded in eluding all pursuers, and there
is as yet but scanty and unsatisfactory evidence to
prove that any of the real conspirators are in cus-
tody, or that there were any conspirators at all, ex-
cept Booth and the cowardly ruffian who stabbed
the helpless Secretary of State and crushed the skull
of Mr. Fred. Seward, when endeavouring to protect
his father. Rewards amounting in the aggregate to
upwards of $lOO,OOO, have been offered for the ap-
prehension of both or either of the wretches, and
unless they evade justice by the commission of suicide
America and Europe will be too small to conceal them.
Booth's face and person are well known to thousands
of playgoers in most of the cities of America, and
not the most ingenious of theatrical disguises, in all
of which he is proficient, will be enough to screen
him from the prying eyes which even without the
incentive of a large reward would be sharpened to
detect so heinous a criminal. If in the madness of
his diseased imagination he relied upon the sympathy
or approval of the South, and has made his way into
Virginia, whose motto he has infernalised by adopt-
ing it as his vindication, he will find that the South
as well as the North revolts with horror at his deed,
and that the evil passions which the war has excited
are not so evil as to make him other than what he is

—the vilest assassin known to history, and one t;
meet the enormity of whose crime no punishment
that man can inflict is adequate. Death is the
utmost, and death to such a desperado, especially if
it be 'made sufficiently solemn to afford him an
opportunity of ending with a theatrical flourish and
a display of stage heroism, may be the very fate he
craves to hand him down to that immortality of in-

famy which seems to have had such a frightful charm
to his perverted intellect.

Slowly, but surely, the sensible people of both
political parties are removing from their minds the
suspicion that the assassination was other than the
individual act of Booth, and one or two associates,
whom by the magnetism of a strong will he had won
over to his detestable purpose. In a letter, written
by the assassin in November last, and left sealed
and for safe keeping in the custody of his brother-in-
law—a Mr. John S. Clarke, and not opened by that
gentleman until after the murder—Booth declares
himself the enemy of Mr. Lincoln's policy, and the
friend of the South and of Peace, states that the
Federal flag seems to his eyes the emblem of tyranny
and wrong, and its once bright red stripes " bloody
gashes on the face of heaven." He also hints
vaguely at some great purpose which he has in view,
and signs himself " J. Wilkes Booth, a Confederate
doing duty upon his own responsibility." So far
from the bloody deed being in any way acceptable to
the people of the South, or to those of the North,
who desire the triumph of the Southern cause, it has
been by none denounced with more earnestness of
horror than by the people of Richmond and other
captured cities, and, as far as is known, by the whole
opinion of the South. General Lee was painfully
affected when he heard the news, and Mr. Jefferson
Davis will, there can be no reason to doubt, when
the sad information reaches him in his flight south-
wards from the pressing armies of Generals- Sher-
man, Sheridan, and Stoneman, place upon record
his detestation of the crime.
Mr. Johnson's address in reply to the new British
Ambassador, Sir Frederick Bruce, has been received
with great satisfaction, not only by the British resi-
dents in this city, but by the American public in
general. " The interests of civilisation and humanity
ed tnheewUpnriesteiddeSntat tease)t shin. should bs e
rfesriepnedets . ' Let
as
require," he says, " that the two nations (Great Bri-
tain
speaks, and he will find that Great Britain by her
buttai n and
statesmen, her people, and her Government will cul-
tivate the amity which he and they think so neces-
sary, and the rupture of which would be the greatest
calamity that could befall
the world.
The absence of any confirmation of the reported
surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston, so posi-
tively announced a few days ago, begins to excite
uneasiness. It is asserted that his force has been
augmented by many thousands who deserted or
straggled from Lee's army before its surrender,
and now numbers at least 50,000 men. In addi-
tion to this cause of disquiet it is known that Gene-
rals Kirby Smith, Stirling Price, and Magruder
have at least 50,000 men in the great Trans-
Mississippi regions of Louisiana and Texas. As
Texas alone is as large as France and Belgitur,
is without navigable rivers or railroads, and by its
configuration and internal resources is capable of
defending itself for years against an invading army,
deprived of the facilities which navigab.le. streams
have afforded the Federals in the hostilities of the
last four years, it is possible that Mr. Jefferson
Davis will endeavour to make his way to that coun-
, try, as many suppose is his intention. Whether the
• Trans-Mississippian army will place itself under his
orders for the continuance of the struggle or in his
default, whether Kirby Smith, Stirling Price, Mag.
L ruder, or any other commander possesses daring and
. energy enough to-stake his life and fortune on so
bold a venture remains to be seen.