The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-15 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR 1N AMERICA.

( From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
THE NORTH-WEST.
RACINE, WISCONSIN, SEPT. 23.
Persuaded that nothing of importance could take
place for some time to come in the vicinity of
Washington, I left it on the 17th, when the New
York papers were amusing their readers with the
comforting assurance that "a great fight" was
coming off " immediately," and when many people
were actually coming to the capital to "assist" at the
battle, in the French use of the word. I was
anxious to change the scene and the air, and to
ascertain, as far as a hasty journey would permit
me to do, the state of feeling in reference to the
war in the very district where the love of the Union
burns with the brightest and steadiest, if not with
the purest flame. On the night before my depar-
ture there were warning voices raised against any
rash confidence in appearances. A spy had come
in—the honoured and most trusted spy of all—and
he had most violently and solemnly asseverated that
before 24 hours had elapsed Beauregard would be
hurling his battalions against the southward de-
fences of Washington. " If that is not the case,"
observed the trusted spy, " never will I ask for re-
liance to be placed in me again." All his reports
had been found trustworthy np to that point, but
'when he ventured to declare that any general could
move an immense army, such as Beauregard and
Johnson commanded, in an attack on one point,
without more than 24 hours' preparation, and when
he asserted that men of military capacity, such as
Beauregard and Johnson are said to be, would
direct that mass on narrow converging paths, to be
slaughtered by formidable batteries in a hopeless
assault, it was plain that the information he gave
could not be depended upon. The movements of
the Confederates, indeed, indicated a desire to in-
duce an attack rather than a determination to
assault; but, at the same time, they displayed an
uneasiness which gave reason to believe that if they
failed in that object they were not in a position to
remain inactive, and that the future would develope
different plans, such as I speculated upon in previous
letters in connexion with operations on other points
of the Potomac. It was known to me that no move-
ment would be made by General M'Clellan till he
was ready ; and ready he was not likely to be for
some fortnight or three weeks to come. Since
that time, indeed, the imperfect information which
has been received shows that the Confederates
have conceived the idea of penning in the Fede-
ralists by earthworks commanding the roads along
which they must debouch, so as to form a sort of
investment; but this plan would require a much
greater development than it has yet had to prove a
very serious obstacle on the right of the Federal,
position. It is a remark made by a British officer of
experience, who recently visited the lines with
General M'Clellan, that it is impossible to fight a
battle on the ground in front of Arlington and
Alexandria. And so, indeed, it is. There may be a
tremendous brisk fight and considerable artillery
duels, but anything like a regular organised com-
bined movement of an army of 60,000 men on
either side in attack or defence is scarcely practicable
as a single operation. If Shooter's-hill could be mul-
tiplied by 40 or 50, covered with dense woods, and
placed in aline parallel to the banks of the Thames,
with the intermediate valleys seamed with water-
courses and ravines, it would give some idea of the
country from the front of Alexandria round to the
positions on the proper right front of Arlington.
In fact, now that the forests are cleared away so as
to leave a fair open before the works for the fire of
their artillery, although it is quite possible to ad-
vance within certain distances masked by the woods
it is scarcely within the range of probability that
an organised attack can be made successfully along
the whole front.
It would be interesting to inquire how far the
passions of men are affected by the physical condi-
tions of the country in which they live. In war the
operations of armies are regulated by those condi-
tions almost exclusively. It is a certainty that an
army properly intrenched with great natural ad-
vantages of position will defeat an assailing force. A
Thermopylae is only a great monument to the heroic
dead who defended it if there be men enough to
take it. A wedge only goes as far as the man can
strike it, and If the tree is not split then
and no other wedge be at hand, the iron is merely
buried and lost. So far there has been a complete
vindication in the United States of the wisdom of
those old generals who generally in times gone by
marked out certain; battle fields and strategical
points in Europe for the decision of their conflicts
and manoeuvres, just as in America the fashionable
duelling grounds are set out and resorted to in the
neighbourhood of the great cities. Gen. Beauregard
seems inclined to prevent any such debouching of
the army of the Potomac as that which M'Dowell
conducted on his position at Manassas with every
prospect of successful issue till Johnson's reinforce-
ment threw itself upon the straggling right of the
Federal line; and it would surprise most military
men to hear that he intended the works he is now
throwing up merely as lines covering the advance
of his columns of assault. But it appears to be true
that the confederates are led to think they will
speedily be conducted to a direct attack. If they
are, their defeat ought to be a matter of positive
certainty, for the Federalists will assuredly fight
with every possible condition of success on their side.
Under the circumstances it is probable that the
first important offensive operation of the Federalists
will be made by General Fremont, who is urgently
called upon to retrieve the fortunes of the United
States in Missouri. Lexington is lost. it is taken,
too, by a force which must have come some thou-
sands of miles, without proper arms or transport.
And now the Confederates are on the Missouri,
high above Jefferson City and St. Louis, iu the
north-west portion of the State of Missouri itself.
The Federalists are assured this is just the place
where their enemies ought to be, and that Mulli-
gan and his command were a mere bait for General
Price, put there in order that General Fremont
might close on him ; and they are told to be com-
forted because a great fight will soon take place,
"in which the rebels are sure to be pretty badly
worsted." In a former letter I expressed a doubt
whether General Fremont was of the stuff of
which great commanders are made; but I am by
no means inclined to join in condemning him
for the surrender of Lexington till fuller informa-
tion shows he was culpably negligent or careless,
for he is not a man who would epose himself to
such censure, particularly in the present state of
his relations with the Government. General Fre-
mont may
not be all his friends suppose he is; but
an
earnest, energetic, clear-sighted, and determined
man,
quite above the commission of culpable
neglects or foolish indifferences. If he be guilty of
either it will sonrrperrise me, though it is quite pos-
sible that his d
have been misunderstood
or disobeyed ; or, as aygami i that he may not have had
the means to effect that which ought to have been
done. Here is a State larger than Ireland, and
disaffected to the core in many counties to the Fe-
deral Government, or rather to the Yankees,"
surrounded e
ap
surrounded by Confederate States and sympathies,
and stretching far up on the flank of Illinois' and the
great Abolition North-West. It is overrun by small
—small for the work—parties of Federalists, who
move away in the air without any traces of opera
tion from point to point till they are attacked,
obliged to concentrate, to fall back, or to fight hope-
less battles, such as that in which the gallant Lyon
was killed and his corps terribly defeated, and
meantime the North is kept happy by promisss that
these defeats were victories in their way, and that
digesters are cunning devices to obtain triumphs;
that Lyon's sacrifice is but the loss of a sprat in
order to catch such a whale as Price. When Lord
Clyde was placed in somewhat similar circum-
stances with regard to Oude—and that province or
kingdom, by the bye, is not quite unlike the State
of Missouri, being intersected by the Gogra, very
much as the latter is by the great river from which
it takes its name—he was urged by what is called
publie opinion and the press in India to make au
inua movement and to sweep the rebels off the
soil. But he had already seen how utterly futile
it was to attempt
a permanent subjugation of the
e
country till he h
rison
at
every
strategic
force sufficient to leave a gar-
he resisted all press post as he advanced, and
sare till he was able to me ye

forward with such an army as would suffice to
beat his enemies on the field and Prevent their
reassembling in his rear and flanks by putting
forces as he passed along in all the principal
cities strong enough to overcome the populace and '
defend themselves. Such must be the it ilitat y ope-
ration in Missouri, where it is obvious a large pro-
portion of the population is hostile or indifferent.
Now, it is for Gen. Fremont to show that he could
not have done what was done by Lord Clyde, and I
do not think he will fail in the proof, however diffi-
cult it may be for him to demonstrate that he could
not have helped Col. Mulligan. Into the great
Blair.cum-Fremont controversy let me not enter—
let no one enter, indeed, who desires not to leave
hope for the Union behind. It is to be dealt with
only by those who can determine the amount of
" shoddy" which can be properly shoved into a con-
tractor's cloth ; or, again, it is a case far those who
are versed in military law, and can detect the differ-
ence between the choleric word of a politician and
the rank blasphemy of a subordinate officer, On an
occasion on which I met Gen. Fremont at Washing-
ton it was at the house of Mr. Blair, the Post-
master-General, and I was certainly informed that
it was mainly owing to Mr. Blair's influence that
the General obtained his command, so that this im-
broglio is the more inexplicable. The Colonel Blair
who is under arrest is so well thought of by his
friends at Washington that one of them did not
hesitate to tell me all the early successes of the un-
fortunate Lyon were due to the political knowledge
and guidance of Frank Blair. I am told that the
prisoner refuses to be released, and insists on being
in arrest till he is tried by court-martial—a proceed-
ing which will not fail to embarrass General Fre-
mont at this particular juncture.
The place from which this letter is dated is one
of the wonderful creations of the grain harvests
and immigration in the vast prairie tracts which
lie on the western shores of the Michigan inland
sea. It looks like a Russian settlement—not un-

like, indeed, to the suburbs of Kherson, with
a view of wide, muddy streets, plank footpaths,
wooden houses, shady trees by the roadside,
spires and metalled domes and well-built houses
of brick, rising above the dead level of the edifices
of timber. Here, too, are to be seen the omni-
present German beer saloon and the well-known
names and trades followed by the Teutons in Russ-
land as in the United States. Nor are railways
absent, nor corn elevators, nor a great future firmly
believed in , though Milwaukee on the one side above
on the lake, and Chicago below, rather abduct the
refreshing juices of commerce from the little place,
and leave Racine somewhat sapless and desiccate.
Here were drums and fifes for the Union, and more
men for the Union—a very awkward squad to look
at, but Wisconsin is not behindhand, and consider-
ing scanty population, has done well towards the
Federal cause. The Racinites were rather proud
of an officer from their city who was taken prisoner
the other day before Washington, or who, more
properly speaking, surrendered himself, and was
walking back with his unsuspecting captors when,
being asked to give up his arms, he drew a brace of
revolvers, shot two of them as they marched before
him, ran away, and finally escaped by shooting
another of his pursuers, although he was hit by a
buckshot through the cheeks, and cut in two places
by bullets. His course was scarcely justifiable
according to the rules of civilised warfare, for if he
surrendered, as he himself states, he had no right
to shoot those to whom he yielded up his sword.
This by the way: Racine has several newspapers
for its population of 4,000 or 5,000, and boasts of a
variety of religions, not including the Spiritualists,
who, to the disgrace of the intelligence and educa-
tion of the New England States, prevail in Con-
necticut and Maine, and spread across the States to

the West, so that there is scarce a little town in
which there is not an advertising " medium,"
who prepares prescriptions according to recipes
given her or him by angels (on the cheapest terms)
for all sorts of diseases, and practises all sorts of
blasphemous, wicked, and shameless impostures
on the miserable victims of superstition. It has
a river and a port, and trading schooners, and
is now sending out a feeder in the shape of a
railway to the west to the Upper Mississippi at a
place called Savannah, by which it hopes to coax
more trade and more grain to its warehouses,
although pressed by competing lines, The great
influx of emigrants to this part of the world has
been a good deal accelerated by the operation of the
homestead law. Every man's house is his castle—
no landlord to eject, no creditor to distrain. And
so the sagacious poor have hit on an excellent plan
never intended by the legislators of using this law.
Whenever they spy a nice bit of land convenient
for their purposes they assemble their planks on a
Saturday night ; on the stroke of midnight they are
at work ; on Sunday the house is completed ; on
Monday they are " monarchs of all they survey—
their right there is none to dispute." It was won-
derful to see how wretched some of those edifices
are—open to winds and rain and all the skyey in-
fluences. The country around is level and covered
with rich grass and patches of wood, which, in the
varied hues the trees are beginning to assume with
advancing autumn, show pleasantly to the wayfarer
and refresh his eye. A few miles out to the *est
and we reach the rolling prairie, which is, however,
settled so thoroughly that but few portions are un-
tilled, and little is to be seen of the natural soil.
Wooden houses are scattered over the great wave-
like undulations on which lie in stack and stook
thousands of quarters of Indian corn and wheat
running to waste. It is an actual fact that maize
is so cheap that it is burnt in the railway engines
as fuel, and wheat will not pay the cost of its re-
moval—and there may be starving millions in
Europe ! Eyes, curious and Milesian, gaze out
from shanties on the roadside, as the train rumbles
by. " What's your name ?" asked lof a little boy.
" I'm Mister Pat Hennessy," he answered. "Do
you go to chapel ?'". No, I don't, it's too far
away." Do you go to school "To be sure an'
I do." And he could spell too, although he cer-
tainly was in imperfect clothing, and did not dis-
dain to tread the earth with naked feet. There is
an idea—l don't know that it is a delusion—
among the Irish out here that they have made the
United States what it is; that they have built the
cities, made the railroads, reclaimed the land, and
done all the fighting—as they say they are doing
now, though disposed to admit their co-citizens
and anything but comrades, the Germans, have
had a little to do in that way. The " Yankees,"
they add, "do all the talking." At Freeport, 50

miles or so to the west, I found a repetition of the
other Freeport on a small scale, minus the lake—a
town with a huge hotel, wonderful to say, quite
full—a town which is not of age yet, as it is still a
minor in years; yet it has three newspapers, gas in
the streets, billiard-tables. Among some of the
people in this district there is, wenderfnl to say, a
tendency towards Secession principles, and an aver-
sion to the war, or rather to the war taxes ; and I
was told by more than one or two that he and his
neighbours would resist the payment of the impost.
Pleasant times coming surely, if this feeling become
largely extended ! Here I heard of a new form of
the Protean jobbing which prevails in the States.
When a colonel of a regiment receives orders to
march, the agents of all the railways which by any
possibility can make out that they can carry his
men to their destination proceed to his quarters at
once, and beset him with offers for the job, and attack
every officer who may have interest with him, even
giving large bribes in order that they may procure
the conveyance of the troops, for which the Govern-
ment pays two cents. per head, or a penny a mile.
Thus, soldiers have been carried by circuitous
routes, and the public service has been interfered
with. It is strange that the Government has not
found it expedient to appoint a director and a
board of railway transportation in connexion with
the Quartermaster-General's Department, particu-
larly after the frightful accidents which have oc-
curred. If that were done and worked honestly, it
would be well for both the soldiers and the public.
The farmers are all expecting high prices for grain,
and dream of wheat at a dollar a bushel. But they
' are not content, and the war tax is a bugbear which
forbids peace and happiness even in this remote
The same sentiment prevailed even in
region.
Pennsylvania, and one gentleman said the sub-
ject filled him with apprehension. The contractors
and providers of army stov9 arq happy and pros-

perous, he said ; but they are not the people, and
Pittsburg bas hard times before it if the war goes
on, although Government orders come in freely and
give a semblance of life to manufacturing industry.

The mauvdis sujets, to be sure, are cleared out of
the large cities into the ranks of the army, but
there are enough left to give trouble if occasion

arises. Some men praise the war, and expect good
results from it in teaching the people useful lessons.
To others it has been a source of wealth and novel
prosperity. One house at Pittsburg had cleared a
considerable sum by selling 1,500 bales of cotton of
surplus stock at 25c. a pound to manufacturers in
Philadelphia who had run out and could get no
other ; another had made a fortune by shoe leather;
a third had done well in iron. But on the whole
trade was suffering, and there was no prospect of
relief. There are remarks more frequently heard in
conversation than seen in the public papers or in
patriotic speeches, and people begin to see that, in
the fight for the Union, what each man was proud
of in his individual State may possibly be endan,
gered as much as personal liberty, freedom of the
press, and trial by jury.
Whenever the doctrine of State Rights is opposed
to the action and proceedings of the Federal Go-
vernment it is at once set at naught, for it is, in
reality, advanced not for the protection of the State
itself, but for the purposes of Secession and of
Southern Confederation, and, in the name of
,the
Union, the Federal Government tramples under
foot a principle which, right enough in the abstract,
is used, in the presence of a state of things to which
it was never intended to apply, as the means of re-
sisting and destroying the Central Government ap-
pointed for all the States. How far State Rights
can ever be restored must be matter for the future.
In the name of Union the Federal Government is
producing a homogeneous condition in the States,
in which the Governors and Legislatures exer-
cise little more power than the Lord-Lieu-
tenants and grand juries of English counties,
and between which there are boundaries not
much more distinct and broadly marked.
Wherever the internal polity of a State in
which the Federal Government had power was
opposed to it, no hesitation has been felt in dealing
with the State as a subject province, in which
martial law and force of arms were the only
rule. The Supreme Ccurt's decisions are of no
avail when there is no power to enforce
them. Exclusive legislation and supreme jurisdic-
tion within their own limits, claimed by the States,
,and said to be guaranteed by the Constitution and
by decisions of the Courts, cannot be admitted by
any Power on earth, when both are used to destroy
it ; but it is felt that the Government, which sends
orders by telegraph all over the country to arrest
insignificant persons in places where the Courts are
open and the Judges are sitting, and which refuses
to let the accused go before a jury, is doing more
than is required for self-preservation. I have got
away so far from Freeport that I can only say it
was the limit of my journey westward, and that on
Wednesday last I returned from it on my way to
Washington.
In passing through Ohio there were indications

among my fellow passengers of discontent and ap-
prehension—an idea that Government was going a
little too far, and that Mr. Seward was somewhat
too much of a Grand Vizier in his style of conducting

business. A propos of Mr. Seward, I may observe
that his acquiescence in certain unknown, anony-

mous accusations in secret memorials against me,
and his hypothetical insinuation that I have per-
verted the hospitality I am said to have received, to
the detriment, and have used it for the misrepre-
sentation of Republican institutions, are neither
candid, nor generous, nor " hospitable;" nor can
they be well reconciled with a spirit of justice when
it is considered that Mr. Seward declares he never
read the letter complained of, and therefore did not
know what it contained, although he appears to
have accepted as true all the representations, what-
ever they may have been, of those who thought fit to
address memorials to him respecting my communica-
tions toyou. Before I left Washington I wrote to Mr.
Seward to ask if any such memorials had been re-
ceived, and stated that I was anxious to reply to them,
but the reply from the State Department was that
Mr. Seward had not seen any such documents as I
referred to. With the matter itself I must leave you
to deal, merely remarking that I utterly deny I have

abused any "hospitality" whatever. Mr. Seward is

surely the last man in the world, or ought to be,
at all events, who would restrict freedom of speech
on the part of a foreigner, even though he may not
be more intelligent or respectable than the other
foreigners who have entered the ranks of an army
which, according to Mr. Lincoln, contains the mate-
rials for whole Cabinets, Ministers, and Generals
wholesale in its file. If he had read the letter
referred to he would have been utterly astonished
at the exceeding absurdity of any charges based
upon it of enmity to the United States or their
theories of government—though I maybe permitted
to say I don't like the lettres de cachet or arrests by
telegram, and then refusal of trial. Let the mem-
bers of an English club picture such a scene as this :
—A body of men in plain clothes march up the
steps, forbid any one to leave the house, place guards
in the hall, take the keys out of the doors, proceed
to tear up the floors, to disturb the cellars and throw
over the coals—refuso to show any warrant to any
of the members, and merely state that they are look-
ing for concealed arms by authority of the Marshal,
and then leave as they came, without the produc-
tion of warrant, or showing in dress, uniform, or
badge that they are really constables, or employed
by any authority whatever. And yet this is what
took place at the Maryland Club in Baltimore the
day of my arrival—a club of the most respectable
gentlemen in the State—without a word of excuse,
explanation, or apology. It is not perverting hos-
' pitality, nor is it hostility to republican institutions,
I to condemn such acts as these.

MIRACULOUS ESC,IPE OF A WHOLE

110 USEHOLD.

Yesterday morning, shortly before two o'clock,
as a police constable of the H division was passing
along his beat, his attention was suddenly attracted
to the premises belonging to Mr. S. Davis, a corn-
chandler and seed merchant, carrying on business
at No. 169, St. George-street, in the East. Smoke
which he saw issuing from the ground-floor ware-
house, at once satisfied him that the building was
on fire, and without a moment's delay he sprung his
rattle, and aler repeatedly knocking at the front
door he succeeded in making Mr. Davis sensible of
the great danger he and his family were exposed
to. Other police-officers having arrived, some
were sent off for the Royal Society's escapes and
the engines. During the interval, Mr. Davis
and several children made their appearance at
the front window, the former stating that
none of them could get down-stairs, owing to the
density of the heated smoke, which no doubt arose
from burning hay and clover seeds. The police told
him to drop the children one at a time out of the
window and they would etch them. He did as
requested, and fortunately the only injury they re-
ceived was from inhaling the smoke. By the time
the children had been got out, Conductor Douglas
came up with the Royal Society's escape just in
time to rescue Mr. Davis and his servant, there
being then no other- means of escape. The engines
of the parish and London Brigade under the direc-
tion of Mr. Brydges, the foreman the district, and
engineer Maidman, were remarkably early in arriv-
ing, and the mains of the East London Company
having been drawn, a copious supply of water was
procured, and the firemen taking advantage of the
same they went to work in their usual daring
manner, but they were unable to get the mastery
over the flames until the warehouse on,the ground
floor and the contents were nearly destroyed, and
the remainder of the premises was seriously injured
by heat and smoke. The origin of the fire is un-
known. Fortunately Mr. Davis was insured in the
State Fire-office.

The Lord-Lieutenant's visit to Lord Castlerosse
has terminated. On Wednesday his Excellency was present
at a grand stag-hunt on the lakes.
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