The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-17 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

7 (Fi ont the Special Corrtspontle4 of the Times.)
WASHING N,- DECEMBER.
Since my last letter there hasheen no military or
naval event of importance, though we are all living
in hopes of something happening aeon. The ex-
citement caused by the arrest of Mews. Mason and
Slidell is dying away, as people hasi made up their
minds either that it was quite right or that England
will do nothing in the matter. If thetiesolutions
of the House of Representatives be4A ,- ~.,... •• ,Isy
the President, the Confederate " ArnbeCia • ors," as
they were called when they were arrested, will be
placed in felons' cells, and it need not be added, as
they are both old men, that they will not long
survive the severities of a Northern climate at this,
time of year in infamous confinement. The ground
of this proposition is that Colonel Corcoran and
Mr. Wood, taken prisoners at Manassas, have been
confined in a similar way by order of the Confede-
rate Government. But it must be remembered
that this act of the hostile Cabinet was intended as
retaliation for the treatment of officers and seamen
of the Confederate navy, who had been tried and
sentenced for piracy, and that Colonel Corcoran, 1
Mr. Wood, and others were chosen by lot and
placed, man for man, in close confinement under the
peine forte et lure administered to the Confederate
prisoners, with the threat that if the sentence on
them were carried out similar punishments could
be inflicted on the Federal prisoners set apart as
hostages. The North will. provoke some desperate
effort to retaliate again, and as the war goes on it
will assume the character of sanguinary vindictive-
ness, which at first disgraced the conduct of the
forces in Virginia. The confiscation proposals will
rouse the South to the highest pitch of animosity,
and in their anger and despair they will be
capable of deeds which may astonish the world
rather with sorrow than with admiration. There
is no doubt that the development of the naval
power of the North is ably and skilfully conducted
by the Navy Department, and that the most
formidable preparations are being made to
crush out all resistance on the seaboard, and
to destroy the present commerce, if not the
future life, of the revolted Southern cities. How
long the Confederate army can maintain itself
against the urgent cries of the maritime States to
their sons is doubtful, but the Government hero act
apparently on the belief that Beauregard% forces
will be at last reduced to such a number that
M'Clellan can advance against them with every
certainty of success in his overwhelming strength
and vast superiority of artillery. A new division of
the army has been formed at the other side of the
Potomac, under Gen. Sumner, who is said to be an
officer of conduct and experience, though rather
strict, considering the notions entertained by his
men as to matters of discipline. There are now
eight divisions between Alexandria and the right of
the Federalists towards Drainsville, in Virginia; and
I am not at all prepared to admit there arc more than
78,000 men there; but there is a force of some 200
field guns, and an increasing force of cavalry across
the water, and the camps at this side and up in
Maryland aro strongly held. There is a certain sort
of movement iu the Commissariat which indicates
either uneasiness in reference to supplies, or prepa-
rations for movement. There is still more fortifying
going on. In a ride by a by-path down to the river
the other day I came upon three artful little works
on the top of a plateau, surrounded by a wood. One
was beautifully finished, and armed with five heavy
guns. The others were in the course of completion,
and gangs of men were working busily on the para-
pets. The Confederates do not molest small vessels
running past the batteries close to the Maryland
shore lately, but their forbearance is not to be re-
lied upon, and now and then " the Page" makes a
rush at some luckless schooner and hauls it away
into some secluded creek to eat its oysters or devour
its cargo. So far as I can judge, there is no chance
of an immediate advance, but there are rumours and
predictions and reasons going on all over the town
to the effect that the General must very soon do
something or the North will become angry. The
progress which has been made on the coast makes
him all the more impatient to clutch the full
rewards of all her expenditure, her losses, and her
exertions. A great victory by land is needed for
the prestige of her arms, but the public voice is
silenced by the fear of what would follow a defeat.
A false step, an abortive blow in front of Washing-
ton, might render all her little triumphs in the
South worse than abortive, and lay the North open
to invasion at the very moment when her superiority
was becoming daily more manifest. Slowly, but
surely, her teeth are fastening on the Southern
coast.

The acquisition of Tybee Island gives additional
importance to the occupation of Port Royal, and
closes up the entrance to Savannah effectually. It
also affords a base of operations against Fort Pu-
laski, which is situate on a sandbank divided from
the island by the sea, a little higher up the tideway
of the Savannah River. Of the fort itself it may
be recollected I gave some description in my account
of a visit to that place with Commodore Tattnall,
but it is to be presumed that the defences and the
armament have been strengthened since that time,
and it will prove no easy matter to take it unless by
continuous vertical firo and the heaviest horizontal
fire at short distances. Tattnall's small equadron
of river steamers must be now 'shut up inside, and
the abortive attempt he made the other day to force
the blockading vessels may have indicated an in-
tention to get away if he could, or a feint to draw
them under the fire of the forts. The inhabitants
of the city aro described to be flying in terror, ac-
companied by their slaves, and the trains are
crowded, it is said, by that sort of fugitive property
going westward, out of danger. Without admitting
to the fullest extent the testimony of the Confe-
derate General Drayton (brother, by the by, of one
of the captains of the United States' squadron
which reduced the works at Hilton Head) in
favour of the loyalty of the negroes to their
masters, there is ample evidence in the correspon-
dence of the Northen papers that the Federalists
will gain little or no aid from the blacks, and that
the hope of servile insurrections entertained by
the Abolitionists are, in the district of Beaufort, at
all events, utterly fallacious. To my mind there
has been by no means such a display of energy as
might have been expected from regularly trained
officers of ordinary ability in connection with the
attack on the works. I do not speak of the neglect
to occupy Beaufort, which is a place of little im-
portance in a strategic point of view, but of the ex-
traordinary apathy which seized on the naval and
military commanders as soon as the fire of the forts
was silenced. With a little dash and promptitude
on their part not one of the enemy ought to have
got away. Where were the gunboats ? Where were
the armed launches and boats of the fleet ? Allow-