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-
feisCes of Washington. "If that is not the cases'
observed the trusted spy, " never will I ask for re-
liance to be placed in me again." All his reports
had been found trustworthy up 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
eitherside in attack or defence is scarcelypracticable
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 tire 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, in 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 expose 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
earnest, energetic, clear-sighted, and determined
man, quite above the commission of culpable
neglects or
wiflolorsuoisrhp ris.indifferences. If he be guilty:of
either it
that his e me, though it is quite pos-
sible:rs may have been misunderstood
or disobeyed ; or,
the
means to
effect thata which ought to have been
done. Here is
core
in
many than Ireland, and
disaffected to the
or
rather
ytocounties to the Fe-
deral Government,
States the
" Yankees,"
surrounded by Confederate
and
.sympathies,
lhnois and the
and stretching far up on the flank of
great Abolition North-West. It is overrun by small
—small for the work—parties of Federaisais
who
move away in the air without any traces esepe
)
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 promises that
these defeats were victories in their way, and that
disasters 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
public opinion and the press in India to make an
onNtard movement and to sweep the rebels off the
11°11. But he had already seen how utterly futile
it
covjulastrbto,a:tute_mpt a permanent subjugation of the
Tison-Jat
o‘,:` ne bad force sufficient to leave a gar-
he post as he advanced, and
1415W2re till he was able to more