The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-07 00:00:00

RAILWAYS.

Cash. Account.
Orleans 1350 .. 1352 50
Northern
New ditto BB7 50 .. 890
Lyons and Mediterranean 925 .. 927 50
Geneva 405 .. 406 25
Southern 565 .. 566 25
Western
Eastern .... 572 50 .. 573 75
Sardinian
Austrian
Lorr bard

TIE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA;

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
FROM MONTGOMERY TO MOBILE.

MOBILE, ALABAMA, MAY 1L

The wayfarer who confides in the maps of a
strange country, or who should rely upon even the
guide-books of the United States, which still lack a
Murray or a Bradshaw, may beat timesembarrassed
by insuperable hills and innavigable rivers. When,
however, I saw the three towering stories of the
high pressure steamer Southern Republic, on board
of which we tumbled down the steep bank of the
Alabama river at Montgomery, any such misgivings
vanished from my mind. So colossal an ark could
have ascended no mythical stream, and the exist-
ence and capabilities of the Alabama were demon-
strated by its presence.
Punctuality is reputed a rare virtue in the river
steamers of the West and South, which seldom leave
their wharfs until they have bagged a fair comple-
ment of passengers, although steaming up and ring-
ing gongs and bells every afternoon for a week or
more before their departure, as if travellers were to
be swarmed like bees. Whether stimulated by the
infectious activity of these " war times," or con-
vinced that the "politeness of kings" is the best
steamboat policy, the grandson of Erin who owns
and commands the Southern Republic casts off his
fastenings but half-an-hour after his promised start
and the short puff of the engine is enlivened by the
wild strains of a steam-organ called a " calliope,"
which gladdens us with the assurance that we are
in the incomparable " land of Dixie."
Reserving for a cooler hour the attractions of the
lower floor, a Hades consecrated to machinery,
freight, and Negroes, we betake ourselves to the
second landing, where we find a long dining-hall
surrounded by two tiers of State rooms, the upper
one accessible by a stairway leading to a gallery,
which divides the " saloon" between floor and roof.
We are shown our quarters, which leave much to
be desired and nothing to spare, and rush from
their suffocating atmosphere to the outer balcony,
where a faint breeze stirs the air. There is a roofed
balcony above us that corresponds to the second
tier of State rooms, from which a party of excited
Secessionists are discharging revolvers at the dip-
pers on the surface and the cranes on the banks of
the river.
After we have dropped down five or six miles
from Montgomery, the steam whistle announces our
approach to a landing, and, as there is no wharf in
view, we watch curiously the process by which our
top heavy craft, under the sway of a four-knot cur-
rent, is to swing round to her invisible moorings.
As we draw nigh to a waggon-worn indenture in the
bank, the " scream" softens into the dulcet pipes of
the "calliope," and the steamer doubles upon her
track, like an elephant turning at bay, her two
engines being as independent of each other as seced-
ing States, and, slowly stemming the stream, lays
her nose upon the bank, and holds it there with the
judicious aid of her paddles until a long plank is
run ashore from her bow, over which three pas-
sengers with valises make way for a planter and
his family who come on board. The gang plank is
hauled in, the steamer turns her head down stream
with the expertness of a whale in a canal, and we
resume our voyage. We renew these stoppages
various times before dark, landing here a barrel
and there a box, and occasionally picking up a pas-
senger.
After supper, which is served on a series of
parallel tables running athwart the saloon, we re-
turn to enjoy from the balcony the cool obscurity
of the evening in this climate, where light means
heat. As we cleave the glassy surface of the black
water the timber- clad banks seem to hem us in more
closely and to shut up in the vista before us, and
while we glide down with a rapidity which would
need but the roar of rapids to prefigure a cataract
beyond, we yield to the caprice of fancy, instituting
comparisons between the dark perspective ahead
and the mystery of the future.
Again a scream and ruddy light flashes from our
prow and deepens the shades around us. This pro-
ceeds from the burning of " light wood"—a highly
resinous pine—in a wire basket hung on gimbals
and held like a landing net below the bow of the
steamer, so as to guide without blinding the pilot,
who is ensconced like a Hansom cabman upon its
roof. The torchbearer raises his cresset as we
steam up to the bank, and plants it in a socket,
when a hawser is seized round a tree, and the crew
turn ashore to " wood up." There is a steep high
bank above us, and while dusky forms are flitting,
to and fro with food for our furnaces, we survey a

long stairway ascending the bank at a sharp angle
in a cut, which is lost in the sheds that crown the
eminence over head. This stair is flanked on
either side by the bars of an iron tramway, up
which freight is hauled when landed, and parallel
to it is a wooden slide, down which bales of cotton
and sacks of corn are shot upon the steamer. One
or two passengers slowly ascend, and a voice in
the air notifies us that a team is at hand with a
load of ladies, who shortly after are seen pick-
ing their way down the flight of steps. The cres-
set is constantly replenished with fresh light wood,
and the shadows cast by its flickering flame make
us regret that we have not with us a
Turner to preserve this scene, which would have
been a study for Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa.
At midnight we halt for a couple of hours at
Selmo, a " rising town," which has taken a start of
late, owing to the arrival of a branch railway that
connects it with Tennessee and the Mississippi
river. Here a huge embarcadere, several stories
high, seems fastened to the side of the bank, and
affords us an opportunity of stepping out from
either story of the Southern Republic upon a cor-
responding landing. Upon one of these floors there
are hackmen and hotel runners, competing for those
who land, and indicating the proximity of a town,
if not a city. Our captain had resolved upon
making but a short stay, in lieu of tying up until
morning—his usual practice—when an acquaint-
ance comes on board and begs him to wait an hour
for a couple of ladies and some children whom he
will hunt up a mile or so out of town. Times are
hard, and the captain very cheerfully consents, not
insensible to the flattering insinuation, " You know
our folks never go with any one but you if they
can help it."
The next day and evening are a repetition of the
foreg2ing scenes, with more plantations in view and
a general air of tillage and prosperity. We are
struck by the uniformity of the soil, which every-
where, seems of inexhaustible fertility, and by
the unvarying breadth of the stream, which, but
for its constantly recurring sinuosities, might pass
for a broad ship canal. We also remark that the
bluffs rarely sink into bottoms susceptible of over-
flow, and admire the verdure of the primitive
forest, a tangle of magnolias in full flower, of
laurels, and of various oaks peculiar to this region,
and which, though never rising to the dignity of
that noble tree in higher latitudes, are many of
them extremely graceful. All this sylva of mode-
rate stature is intertwined with creepers, and at
' intervals we see the Spanish moss, indicating the
malarious exhalations of the soil beneath. The

Indian corn, upon which the Southerners rely prin-
cipally for food, has attained a height of two feet,
and we are told that, in consequence of the war, it
is sown in greater breadth than usual. The cotton
plant has but just peeped above the earth, and,
alluding to its tenderness, those around us express
anxieties about that crop, which, it seems, are never
allayed until it has been picked, bagged and pressed,
shipped and sold.
As I am not engaged upon an itinerary, let these
sketches suffice to convey an idea of the 417 miles
of winding river which connect Montgomery with
Mobile, to which place the Southern Republic con-
veyed us in 35 hours, stoppings included.
One of the Egyptian pyramids owes its origin to
the strange caprice of a princess, and the Southern
Republic is said to have been built with the proceeds
of an accidental " haul" of Gold Coast natives, who
fell into the net of her enterprising proprietors. This
_ _

worthy, born of Irish parents in-Milli.street, is too
striking a type of what the late Mr. Webster was
wont to call " a Northern man with Southern prin-
ciples" not to deserve something more than a pass-
ing notice.
For out and-out Southern notions there is nothing
in Dixie's Land like the successful emigrant from
the north and east. Captain Meagher had at his
fingers' ends all the politicc-economical facts and
figures of the Southern side of the question, and
rested his reasoning solely upon the more sordid
and material calculations of the Secessionists. It
was a question of tariffs, The North had, no doubt,
provided the protection of a navy, the facilities of
mails, the construction of forts, custom-houses, and
post-offices in the South, and placed countless well-
paid offices at the disposal of gentlemen fond of
elegant leisure ; but for all these the South had
been paying more than their value, and when Abo-
litionists were allowed to elect a Sectional Presi-
dent, and the system of forced labour, which is the
basis of Southern prosperity, was threatened, the
South were too happy to take a " snap judgment,"
as in a pie poudre Court, and declare the Federal
compact forfeited and annulled for ever.
During the long second day of our voyage we
examined the faces of the proletarians, whose colour
and constitutions so well adapt them for the Cy-
clopian realms of the main deck. Among them
we detect several physiognomies which strike us
as resembling seedlings from the Gold Coast rather
than the second or third fruits of ancient trans-
plantation. A fellow traveller gratifies at the same
time our curiosity and our penetration. There are
several native Africans, or as they are called in
Cuba, bonzes, on board. They are the property
of the argumentative captain, and were acquired
by a coup de main, at which I have already hinted
in this letter. It seems that a club of plan.
ters in this State and one or two others resolved,
little more than a year ago, to import a cargo of
Africans. They were influenced partly by cupidity
and partly by a fancy to set the United States
laws at defiance and to evince their contempt for
New England philanthropy. The job was accepted
by an Eastern house, which engaged to deliver the
cargo at a certain point on the coast within certain
limits of time.
Whether the shipment arrived earlier than anti-
cipated, or whether Capt. Meagher was originally
designed as the person to whom the bold and deli-
cate manoeuvre of landing them should be intrusted,
it is certain that 'on a certain Sunday in last July
he took a little coasting trip in his steamer Czar,
and appeared at Mobile on the following morning
in season to make his regular voyage up river. It
is no less certain that he ran the dusky strangers in
at night by an unfrequented pass, and landed them
among the cane-brakes of his own plantation with
sufficient celerity to be back at the moorings of the
Czar without his absence having been noticed. The
vessel from which the bonzes were delivered was
scuttled and sunk, and her master and crew found
their way North by rail.
But the parties in interest soon claimed to divide
the spoils, when, to their infinite disgust, the enter-
prising captain very coolly professed to ignore the
whole business, and defied them to seek to recover
by suit at law property the importation of which
was regarded and would be punished as felony if
not as piracy by the judicial tribunals. A case was
made and issue joined, when the captain proved a
circumstantial alibi, and, having cast the claimants,
doled them out a few bonzes, perhaps to escape as-
sassination, as shells,while he kept the oyster in the
shape of the pick of the importation which he still
holds, reconciling his conscience to the transaction
by interpreting it as salvage.
All this is told us by our interlocutor, who was
one of the losers by the affair, and who stigmatised
the conduct of its hero as having been treacherous.
The latter, after repeated jocular inquiries, suffers
his vanity to subdue his reticence, and finishes by
" acknowledging the corn."
In the afternoon of the second day we meet two
steamers ascending the river with heavy cargoes,
and are told that they are the Keyes and the
Lewis, recently warned off and not seized by the
blockading squadron off Pensacola. They are deep
with provisions for the forces of the Confederate
States' army before Pickens, which must now be
despatched from Montgomery by rail.
In Mobile, for the first time since leavine. Wash-
.. ..

ington, " we realise" the entire stagnation of busi-
ness. There are but five vessels in port, chiefly
English, which will suffice to carry away the debris
of the cotton crop. Exchange on the North is
unsaleable, owing to the impossibility of importing
coin through the unsettled country, and bills on
London are of slow sale at par, which would leave
a profit of 7 per cent. upon the importation of gold
from your side.

MOBILE, SUNDAY, MAY 12.

The heat of the city rendered an excursion to
which I was invited, for the purpose of visiting the
forts at the entrance of the bay, exceedingly agree-
able, and I was glad to get out from the smell of
warm bricks to the breezy waters of the sea. The
party comprised many of the leading merchants and
politicians of this city, which is the third in im-
portal, ce as a port of exportation in the United States
of America. There was not a man among them
who did not express with more or less determina-
tion the resolve never to submit to the rule of the
accursed North. Let there be no mistake whatever
as to the unanimity which exists at present in the
South to fight for what it calls its independence, and
to carry on a war to the knife with the Government
of the United States. I have frequently had occa-
sion to remark the-curious operation of the doctrine
of State Rights on the minds of the people; but an
examination of the institutions of the country as
they actually exist leads to the inference that,
where the tyranny of the majority is at once irre-
sponsible and cruel, it is impossible for any man
where the doctrine prevails to resist it with safety
or success. It is the inevitable result of the action
of this majority, as it operates in America, first to
demoralise and finally to absorb the minority ;
and even those :who have maintained what
are called " Union doctrines," and who are
opposed. to Secession or revolution, have bowed
their heads before the majesty of the mass, and have
hastened to signify their acquiescence in the deei
sions which they have hitherto opposed. The
minority, cowardly in consequence of the arbitrary
and vindictive character of the overwhelming power
•against which it has struggled, and disheartened by

defeat, of which the penalties are tremendous in
such conflicts as these, hastens to lick the feet of
the conqueror, and rushes with frantic cheers after
the chariot in the triumph which celebrates its own
humiliation. If there be a minority at all
on this great question of Secession in the Southern
States, it hides in holes and corners, inaccessible
to the light of day, and sits there in darkness and
in sorrow, silent and fearful, if not dumb and hope-
less. There were officers who had served with
distinction under the flag of the United States,
now anxious to declare that it was not their flag,
and that they had no affection for it, although they
were ready to admit they would have continued
to serve under it if their States had not gone out.
A man's State, in fact, under the operation of these
majority doctrines to which I have adverted, holds
hostages for his fidelity to the majority, not only in
such land or fortune as he may possess within her
bounds, but in his family, his relatives and kin, and
if the State revolts the officer who remains faithful
to the flag of the United States is considered by the
authorities of the revolting State a traitor, and,
what is worse, he is treated in the pt rsons of those
he leaves behind him as the worst kind of political
renegade. General Scott, but a few months ago
the most honoured of men in a Republic which sets
such store on military success, is now reviled and
abused because, being a Virginian by birth, he did
not immediately violate his oath, abandon his post,
and turn to fight against the flag which he has illus-
trated by repeated successes, during a career of half
a century, the moment his State passed an ordi-
nance of Secession.

An intelligent and acomplished officer who ac-
companied me to-day around the forts under his
command told me that he had all along resisted
Secession, but that when his State went out he felt
it was necessary to resign his commission in the
United States army and to take service with the
Confederates. Among the most determined oppo-
nents of the North, and the most vehement friends
of what are called here " domestic institutions,"
are the British residents, English, Irish, and Scotch
who have settled here for trading purposes, and
who are frequently slaveholders. These men have
no State rights to uphold, but they are convinced
of the excellence of things as they are, or find it
their interest to be so.
The waters of two rivers fall into the head of the
Bay of Mobile, which is, in fact, a narrow sea creek
between low sandy banks, covered with pine and
forest trees, broken here and there into islands, and
extending some 30 miles, inland, with a breadth
varying from three to seven miles. No attempt
has been made apparently to improve the waters or
to provide docks or wharfage for the numerous
cotton ships which lie at the mouth of the bay,
more than 25 miles from Mobile. All the cotton
has to be sent down to them in lighters, and the
number of men thus employed in the cotton season
in loading the barges, navigating, and transferring
the cargoes to the ships is very considerable, and
their rate of wages is high.
The horror entertained by a merchant captain of
the shore is well known, and the skippers are de-
lighted at an anchorage so far from the land, which
at the same time detains the crews in the ships and
prevents absenteeism and "running." At present
there are but seven ships at the anchorage, nearly
all British, and one of the latter appears in the dis-
tance hard and fast ashore, though whether she got
there in consequence of the lights not being burn-
ing or from neglect it is impossible to say. Fort
Gaines, on the right bank of the channel, near the
entrance, is an unfinished shell of a fort, which was
commenced by the United States' engineers some
time ago, and which it would not be easy to finish
without a large outlay of money and labour. It is
not well placed to resist either a land attack or an
assault by 'coats. A high sandbank in front of one
of the faces screens the fire, and a wood on another
side, if occepied by riflemen, would render it diffi-
cult to work the barbette guns. It is not likely,
however, that the fort will be attacked. The chan-
nel it commands is only fit for light vessels. From
this fort to the other side of the channel, where
Fort Morgaa stands, the distance is over three
miles, and the deep water channel is close to the
latter fort. The position at Gaines is held by a
strong body of Alabama troops—stout, sturdy men,
who have volunteered from farm, field, or desk.
They are armed with ordinary muskets of the old
pattern, and their uniform is by no means uniform,
but the men bok fit for service. The fort would
take a garrison of 500 men if fully mounted, but
the parapets are mere partition walls of brickwork
crenellated ; the bomb-proofs are unfinished,
and, but foe a few guns mounted on
the sandhills, the place is a defenceless
shell-trap. There are no guns in the casemates,
and there is no position ready to bear the weight of
a gun in barbette. The guns which are on the
beach are protected by sandbag traverses, and are
more formidable than the whole fortress. The
steamer proceeded across the channel to Fort Mar-
gan, which is a work of considerable importance,
and is assuming a formidable character under the
superindence of Col. Hardee, formerly of the United
States' army. It has a regular trace, bastion, and
curtain, with a dry ditch and drawbridge, well-
made casemates and bombproofs, and a tolerable
armament of columbiads, 42 and 32-pounders, a few
10-inch mortars, and light guns in the external
works at the ealients. The store of ammunition
seems ample. Some of the fuses are antiquated,
and the gun-carriages are old-fashioned. The open
parade and the unprotected gorges of the casemates
would render the work extremely unpler.sant under
a shell fire, and the buildings and barracks inside
are at present open to the influences of heat. The
magazines are badly traversed and inadequately
protected. A very simple and apparently effective
contrivance for dispensing with the use of the
sabot in shells was shown to me by Colonel Maury,
the inventor. It consists of two circular grummets
of rope, one at the base and the other at the upper
circumference of the shell, made by a simple machi-
nery to fit tightly to the sphere and bound together
by thin copper wire. The grummets fit the bore
of the gun exactly and act as wads, allowing the
base of the shell to rest in close contact with the
charge, and breaking into oakum on leaving the
muzzle. Those who know what mischief can be
done by the fragments of the sabot when fired over
the heads of troops will appreciate this simple in-
vention, which is said to give increased range to the
horizontal shell, The;e must be about 60 guns in
this work; it is over-gairisoned, and indeed it seems
to be the difficulty here to know what to do with
the home volunteers. Rope mantlets are used on
the breeches of some of the barbette guns. At night
the harbour is in perfect darkness. Notwithstand-
ing the defences I have indicated it would be quite
possible to take Fort Morgan with a modienratueirfoedrcle
well supplied with the means of vertical fire.
"Are there many mosquitoes here ?" g
of the waiter on the day of my arrival. " Well
there's a few, I guess ; but I wish there were ten
times as many." "In the name of goodness why
do you say so ?" asked I with some surprise and
indignation. " Because we'd get rid of the—
Black Republicans out of Fort Pickens all the
sooner," replied he. There is a strange unilateral
tendency in the minds of men in judging of the
operation of causes aed results in such a contest as
that which now prevails between the North and
South. The waiter reasoned and spoke like many
of his betters. The mosquitoes, for whose aid he
was so anxious, were regarded by him as true
Southerners, who would only torture his enemies.
The idea of these persecuting little fiends being
so unpatriotic as to vex the Confederates in tb eir
sandy camp never entered into his bead for a
moment. In the same way a gentleman of in-
telligence, who was speaking to me of the terrible
sufferings which would be inflicted on the troops
at Tortugas and at Pickens by fever, dysentery,
and summer heats, looked quite surprised when
I asked him " Whether these agencies would not
prove equally terrible to the troops of the Con-
federates ?"

WILL OF THE LATE ADMIRAL THE EARL OF
DUNDONALD.—The will of Admiral the Right Hon.
Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, G.C.8., late of
Prince Albert-road, South Kensington, was proved in her
Majesty's Court of Probate on the 3d of this month. The
executors nominated are his sons, the present Earl and the
Hon. Arthur Auckland Leopold Pedro Cochrane. The
will is of a peculiar character, and very many of the be-
quests depend entirely upon the realisation of sums of
money which the late Earl claimed from various Govern-
ments, our own included, should the exertions of the execu-
tors, conjointly with the late Earl's private secretary, procure
a liquidation of them. The Earl has bequeathed the amount
amongst his family, with the exception of some legacies and
certain other payments. The property he had in his possession
he has bestowed in the following manner :—To his son,
the present Earl, he has bequeathed the Castle of Dun-
donald, N. 8., with the castle fields and land annexed, and
all his possessions, mineral productions, &c., in the island
of Trinidad, and other property, which may be in the hands
of his agents in that island. The Earl bequeaths to his
relict the Countess all the moneys derived from his naval
services to Greece, invested in the French funds, and
confirms a former gift made to her of £6,000
received from the Government of Brazil; he also leaves
her the furniture and plate in the residence at Boulogne-
sur-Mer, and the use of the plate deposited at Messrs.
Coutts's, Strand, for her life. The Earl gives to his son
Arthur some maritime patents, and to his two youngest sons,
Horace and Ernsst, " the profits, if any, which may arise
from a share in the manufacture of certain compounds for
the use of railwr ys, but in no case are they to interxf: :no
the management of the business." There legacy of
£lOO to his former secretary, Mr. W. Jo-.6on,and
a faithful female servant, wit", annuity to her also of
£lO. The will conduacs with the nomination of the present
Earl Asa roaiduary legatee. We must not omit to mention
'hat there is a peculiarity attending the execution of the
will : it bears date the blank day of June, 1860, but it. Was
not actually executed until on or about the 16th of August
following, the attesting witnesses to the document being
=able to state th 9 Precise day,--ZitisfrgeKLMknillrfifs