The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-31 00:00:00

TILE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Special Correspondent.)
AUGUST 16.
. There are two kinds of news which military men
can learn from newspapers—that which is gleaned
by analysis of the contents, the value of which de-
pends on the materials and the skill of the operator ;
and direct intelligence, the worth of which is in
proportion to its correctness. To tell a general that
a work is well built is like acquainting him that
Troy was strong. To tell him that such a regiment
is in such a place, trivial as it seems, may be of
immense use to him if he knows how the divisions
and brigades of his enemy are composed. A fort
differs from an earthworth as much as an iron-
plated frigate from the Trojan horse. liut in its
-MaY.-13P_,1_114V-14a.
I were to,itiVoi tlat'a fort contained so inane guns,
and that they bore on such and such pointS, I might
lead my military friend into a fatal error, if I did
not inform him that there was a ditch with 12 feet
of water in it outside. If the position of the ma-
gazines were indicated to .an investing force, it
would be worth much more than the knowledge of
the calibres of the guns, which are soon ascertained
by tangible proofs. There are hundreds of points
of this kind on which ignorance requires to •be in-
formed as to -worth and uselessness. It is necessary
to say so, because an outcry has come from the
South, I hear, against me for communicating to the
enemy—i.e., the North—intelligence which I was
enabled to acquire in my capacity as a neutral. Now,
let me say, that though I was a neutral I was the
special correspondent of a newspaper published a
long way off, and that I distinctly stated to every
officer whose command I visited, on both sides, that I
was going to publish so much of what I saw as ap-
peared to me likely to interest the readers of the
journal I represented. I went so far as to say to more
than one, " Mind ! what I write will come back in a
month or six weeks." I saw.everything, but I was
far from publishingev,erything. I did more than could
have been expected from me, for I did not enter upon
details, which would have been far more injurious
to the Southerners than the general statements I
made in reference to the condition and position of
their men and batteries. When I set out to visit the
South from Washington hostilities had not com-
Menced, but I feltthey were coming, and it appeared
to me desirable to visit the. South before the hot
weather physically set in, and, above all, before the
hotter weather poJ itically which I apprehended came
upon me. It was obvious that, with the coasts
blockaded and mails cut 'off, it would have been of
little use for your correspondent to have been in the
South, unless he had adopted the ingenious expe-
dient of the representative of one of your contem-
poraries, and published his letters in a local paper
before he sent them to London. I Made my tour in
the South as a neutral, but those who met me will
do me the justice to admit that I never concealed
my opinions, or simulated those which I did not feel,
as my letters afterwards could have shown. I may
claim for myself the credit of having spoken boldly
and openly to all men—more than once or twice to
the disturbance of the agreeable social relations
which I held with men who were socially all I could
wish, and whose kindness and courtesy—nay, more,

•
And all thatirm777ZtTetfr7itigg
censure of the Northern papers because I went to
the South at all, and saw with my own eyes what
they could not see, and did not take all their myths
as gospel! Very soon after I arrived at Washing-
ton I was invited to the house of a Cabinet Minister,
when I met a very energetic officer of the naval
department, who asked me point blank. " In what
state are their works at Memphis and Randolph ?"
I replied, " I cannot answer you, sir. I visited the
works as a neutral, and, as the correspondent of a
neutral newspaper in a foreign country, I have com-
municated all I think proper to state on the sub-
ject." Now, at that very moment my letter was on
its way to the Times, but, though I made use of con-
siderable detail in describing General Pillow's.works,
I abstained from much which was learnt in confi-
dence, just as I refrained in the very same letter
from stating many matters relating to Cairo. For
instance, General Pillow told me in confidence he
had ordered a chain cable from New Orleans to
stretch across the Mississippi so as to bring up any
steamers under his batteries, and possibly to sink
them, but, as I did not see the cable, I did not
think it right to mention the circumstance, any
more than I did Mr. Benjamin's views as to the
law of blockade, Mr. Jeffersons Davis's private re-
marks, or the little matters which are made known
to the man, and not to the newspaper correspon-
dent. Now, it must be remembered that all I
wrote to England from the South was new ; it was
intelligence no Northern papers could give; it was
notorious that I intended to send it to England.
At that time direct intelligence flooded the land
with light from the North, and any man could
learn how many regiments had arrived at Wash-
ington, how many guns had been put in position or
in the field, as clearly as he knew what Mrs. Lin-
coln said when she was buying a set of china in
New York, or of what pattern the said set was.
For all the American world I preserved unbroken
silence as to what I saw in the South ; till my
letters came back no one knew what I had seen.

If any living man can prove that before I left
New York I had expressed anything but wonder at
the apathy and calm which existed there when my
visit took place, or that before I visited the South,
or when I was there, I ever said a word in appro-
bation of slavery, or expressed any opinion on
either side in opposition to that which appears rather
as a record of impressions than as an opinion from
day to day as I passed through the country, then I
submit to the necessary loss of the confidence you
have placed in me and which you have obtained
for me in this country. This is no light matter.
The character of a newspaper correspondent may
not be of so much worth in America to himself or
to the journal he reprepents that so much type
should be used in its vindication, but I am sure you
will feel it is due to the paper I represent, and to
him who here represents it, to say so much in reply
to scandalous accusations and to imputations dis-
graceful only to those who use them, which have
been freely used against me. If, as I had occasion
to say once before, General Beauregard, General
Lawton, Colonel Hardee, General Hebert, General
Bragg, Mr. Walker (the Secretary of War
for the Confederate States), General Pillow, on the
one side, or General Prentiss, General M'Dowell,
General Scott, or Mr. Secretary Cameron, on the
other, can accuse me of breach of faith, it will be
time for me to show I have never betrayed any
confidence or forfeited the claims to trustworthi-
ness which the correspondents of the Times have
gained in the Crimea, India, and Italy. I had no
theories to maintain, no prejudices to justify. I
neither believed that the United States represented
the perfection of government, or that it was the
coup nianque of mankind in self-government. I did
not think that slavery was the unforgivable sin,
or that it was the reproduction of the system under
which the Fathers of the Primaeval World ad-
ministered their patriarchial rules. As things
seemed to me, so I sought to describe them. The
husk might be too thick for me to penetrate, but at
least I could say what, as it appeared to me, were
its colour, shape, substance, and nature. Because
New York burst into a frenzy when Sumter was

attacked, my letter describing its apathy was de-
nounced with acrimony on ex post facto grounds;
because I expressed my belief that the Union, as
it had been, was gone for ever, I was called a shal-
low observer by writers who are now declaring
that unless the will of the people of eleven States
is put to the sword the Union is lost ; beeaose I de-
pieced, or tried to depict, slavery as I found it to
my senses—a cruel, cold, deadly ingratitude to
(30d—and the plantation system as an organised
outrage on human nature, I have been styled a
spy, a traitor (and the Lord knows what besides,
because the Southern journals do not circulate here),
and it is asserted that I concealed or changed my
opinions. 1° Contempsi Catilina gladios, non per
tirnescan' tuos !" I shall say no more, nor shall
anything tempt me again to make any rejoinder to
the attacks which may, and no doubt will, be u.ide
upon me, and of the wilful malice and persist t
falsity of which I have already satisfied ry owe
- _
mind not unreluctantly.

There is no military movement here, but there
is a good deal of discontent among the soldiery.
The cause alleged for the mutiny of the 79th
(Scotch) New York Regiment was their repugnance
to serve under Mr. Daniel Sickles. As lam told,
the President accepted the services of the Sickles
Brigade under the idea that Mr. Sickles had been
made a Brigadier-General of the State Militia by
qifebSiernrniirtirlhestuft of 3revereiV, The
Governor, however, refused to sign the commission
of that gentleman, who is, therefore, without any
proper authority to command. The scruples of the
Scotch were, however, moral rather than military.
General M'Glellan met the crisis with great vigour
and has given a proof that he is not to be trifled
with, which must produce a good effect on the army
generally. The men have really nothing to com-
plain of—for they are well fed, and now they are
well; paid—except of their own acts in selecting im-
proper officers. They expect manna from Heaven.
Certainly they demand ice, water, milk, and such
luxuries under circumstances quite exceptional,
which would make a British grenadier or a French
Jantassin be, thankful for bread, beef, and mutton.