The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-30 00:00:00

THE SOUTHERN'. CONFEDERACY.

(From the times' Special Correspondent.)
RICHMOND, Nov. 21.
POSTAL UNCERTAINTY.
Circumstances have come to my knowledge which
make it almost certain that my letter from Win-
chester, dated Oct. 15, has been intercepted, and
has never reached its destination. At the risk of
wearying the reader with the repetition of a narra-
tive relating to incidents now so remote in point of
time, I will endeavour to re-write such portions of
that letter as may, even now, be not devoid of in-
terest.

My two companions and I started from Richmond
on October 7 for Staunton, a pretty little town
situated in what is called the Valley of Virginia,
which comprises the table-land between the Blue
Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains. Staunton is
the nearest point upon the Virginia Central Rail-
road to Winchester, in the immediate neighb )ur-
hood of which town General Lee's whole army
was at that moment lying. Staunton is divided
from Winchester by 92 miles of road, which,
luckily for us, proved to be one of the finest rea-
cadamized highways I have ever seen in America.
We expected to have been compelled to traverse
these 92 miles on foot, but by the courtesy of the
Quartermaster• General at Staunton an ambulance
was placed at our disposal, in which we started
from Staunton on the Bth of October, and found
that no slight patience was requisite before we
could hope to come to our journey's end. The days
were intensely and oppressively hot; the nights (as
is usual throughout all the States of the old Union
down to the Southern boundary of Virginia in the
month of October) were cold and numbing with
heavy dews. We had no alternative but to camp
out with the other partners of our march, and the
advantage, which is universal throughout Virginia,
of being able to get abundance of wood, enabled us
to establish roaring fires, and to sleep, lightly fur-
nished as we were with wraps and blankets, in
comfortlble warmth. The third night, which was
beyond expression tempestuous and wet, we suc-
ceeded, after desperate efforts, in getting under
a roof, and in escaping from our ambulance, which
was leaking through the top like a sieve. But the
first two nights gave us some idea of camp life, such
as it is in the Confederate States, and it may at once
be noticed that there are two circumstances which
make the whole of Virginia a magnificent campaign-
ing country—the first is the inexhaustible abund-
ance of firewood ; the second the frequency of the
finest springs and runlets of water. For at least
nine months out of the twelve a campaigner's life
in Virginia is pleasanter and healthier than any
other life that could be led, and the testimony of
hundreds of sickly, puny boys, who never had a
day's health before this war began, and who have
now gone through a year and a half of its trials and
have hardened into sinewy, vigorous men, might be
quoted in evidence of the healthiness of an open air
life in Virginia.

THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS.

As we advanced the road was thickly crowded by
the refluent tide of sick and furloughed soldiers.
Such gaunt, wan, bony, famished skeletons, many
of them shoeless and hatless, almost all in rags, the
flame of life burnt down to the socket, and eyes
deep-sunken and lustreless, the hair matted and
tangled like a wild beast's, it had never been my
fortune to encounter before on earth. It is true that
I have seen waifs and strays from the Federal armies
in the North who matched in emaciation and misery
the worst of the Southern sufferers; but the Federal
soldiers were well clothed and well shod, and had
rarely many miles to walk in their debilitated con-
dition ; but, suffering and reduced as most of these
poor fellows were, never did I hear one faint-hearted
or timid word in reference to the war escape from
their lips. Everywhere there was the most frenzied
abhorrence of the Yankee. There are persons in
England who preach that it is every man's duty,
and especially the duty of writers in the press, to
endeavour to assuage the bitterness of feeling now
existing between the two incensed sections of the
old Union, and to mitigate the animosity which has
blazed into so fierce and irresistible a flame. No man
who has passed ten days in the Confederate States
could fail to discover how hopeless would be such
an attempt. For months past the Federals have
carried on this war as though their opponents were
to be crushed under the iron heel of a despotism
which it was not worth while to conceal or mask
behind any attempts at conciliation. Plundered
houses, outraged women, stolen slaves, gutted cel-
lars, rifled libraries—these have been some of the
chosen instruments by which the Federals have
thought to draw back a dozen recalcitrant States
into the meshes of a Union which is valueless unless
representing a federation of harmonious units.
Could any Englishman justify to his own conscience
the attempt to make these Confederates look lov-
ingly and forgivingly upon their ruthless and tyran-
nical oppressors ? Could he say to the father, in
presence of the dishonoured daughter, "Forget and
forgive ?" It is not in such an atmosphere as this
that such mean-spirited advice would be for a mo-
ment tolerated.