The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-10 00:00:00

something more than distinctions without cliffs-

rences,

( From the Correspondent of the Times.)
WASHINGTON, AUG. 20.
The anxiety which existed to learn the effect on
Europe, and especially on England, of Bull's Run,
has at least been appeased by the receipt of the
mails. Why there was any such intense feeling on
the point it is not easy to see, as any person could
have foretold what the effect would be. But, never-
theless, there is an expression of anger and disap-
pointment at the result. Although the language used
by the Americans in their own journals was far
stronger than any which has appeared in the English
papers, and although Congressmen and editors wrote
in terms of the utmost contempt and sarcastic indig-
nation respecting the behaviour of the troops at the
close of the day and in the rout, it is taken in ill
part that any such freedom of expression should be
exhibited by foreigners. It will be remembered that
in the account I wrote of the panic I expressly
stated that my letter did not refer to the behaviour
of the troops in action, and that I left the Americans
to give their own account of the fight, merely adding
that I had been informed their behaviour in the
advance and in the early part of the day had been
exceedingly creditable. The battle was fought on
the 21st of July, and it was midnight before I reached
my quarters in Washington, after a very long and
harassing day, and a distressing ride on a horse
which had gone over 60 and odd miles of ground in
17 or 18 hours. On Monday night I was obliged to
close my despatch in order to send it off by the 4
a.m. train on Tuesday morning by special courier to
catch the steamer for England, which left Boston
on Wednesday. It was obviously impossible to do
more than record my impressions, nor could I correct
any errors on my part or that of others. The reports
of the generals:since published give an excellent
account in detail of all the different views of the
action along the whole line, and they do not appear
to be much at variance with anything I felt it my
duty to state. Now, it would be well if in giving
accounts of warlike operations the writers were to
make themselves acquainted with the meaning of
plain military terms. We should then hear less
of " charges," and " masked batteries," and such
stuff. It is not at all likely that " desperate con-
flicts," in which two men are killed on one side and
a horse is captured on the other, will disappear
from print, or that similar exaggerations will cease
to entrap the unwary when appearing in large type
in the sensation headings of the journals; but there
is a considerable chance that a people so high-
spirited, so sensitive of ridicule, and so proud as the
Americans, will gradually correct the tendency to
deal in language which exposes them to that which
they most dislike. It is not to be supposed for one
moment that the American people cannot furnish
the materials of as fine an army as the world could
produce. No one questions the gallantry of their
race. They combine the " furia Francese" with
the cold courage of the Anglo-Saxon. But in their
contests they have been made to feel that no de-
pendence can be placed on mere personal bravery,
in which most men are equal in a military sense, as
spoken of by Jomini and other writers, and that
bravery plus discipline cannot ever fail to prove
more than an equation for the same quality minus
discipline. The history of their great struggle with
England is full of examples of panics and flights
alternating with desperate and steady fighting.
The Connecticut Militia were now to blame ; at
another time it was the troops of North Carolina ;
again it was the men of Pennsylvania who fled ;
and Washington had once at least the mortifica-
tion of seeing the troops of the latter State march
off home on the eve of a fight, and from the face of
an enemy, just as M'Dowell was abandoned by the
men of the 4th Pennsylvanian Regiment and the
gunners and officers of various batteries on the night
and morning preceding Bull's Run. At a later
period the Races of Bladensburg took place, and in
the Mexican war more the:n once the Volunteers
justlaeu oy their conduct the exclamation of an
officer of rank who said to me, " For my sins I com-
manded Volunteers in Mexico, and—God help me !
—I shall have to do it again." It is the same story all
over the world when civilians are called into action
without military discipline. There can be no de-
pendence placed on ill-drilled and badly-officered
Volunteers in line of battle. Sedgemoor, Vinegar-
hill, Culloden, and the early fights of the French
Revolutionists on the frontier tell the same story
without disparagement to Englishman, Irishman,
Scotchman, or Frenchman.
But it will be said the South ought to show the
influence of the same defects as the North. The
defects do not exist in anything like the same de-
gree. The Southern armies contain a larger propor-
tion of men who have been accustomed to command
and to obey than the Northern armies. They are
under better discipline, because they fight with
more animosity, and they have been more habi-
tuated to military life. The social distinctions
which exist in the South between rich and poor,
between landed proprietors and their dependants,
extend their influences to the field. No Southern
company would, if it could, elect a mere bour-
geois, a shopkeeper, or the keeper of a house of
ill-fame, to be an officer. There are some Southern
States, such as South Carolina, which have been
drilling their militia for years, and in others the
fear of servile insurrection has created military or-
ganisations of infantry and cavalry which are now
in the service of the Confederates, fighting con amore
against the Abolitionists. They are more used to
arms than the bulk of the Northern populations,
excepting those of the Western States. There is no
" slapping on the back" of officers by privates, such
as I have seen in the Northern regiments in the
streets. The John Brown raid gave an impulse to
all the military systems of the South, and prepared
them for this conflict. In Southern towns and
counties there exists a system of patrols and armed
police unknown in the North, and the parade of
armed force before the slaves was a necessary re-
sult of their condition. In a word, my words of
warning that it would be necessary to handle the
troops of the North with very great caution and
skill in the face of the Confederates have as yet
been borne out to the letter. But they are not
better or stronger men. The poor whites of the
seaboard slave States may be fairly set against
the inferior population of the Northern cities, and
the Secessionist levies of Tennessee may find their
match in the men of Illinois and lowa. If the war
continues discipline will do its work with the United
States armies, and then the question will resolve
itself into one of numbers and position. At the
present moment there is not, as far as I can
judge, outside of the regulars, and one or two crack
regiments, a single battalion which could be relied
on to form into square to receive a charge of cavalry
under a heavy fire with any regularity or success.
And this brings me back to what I was saying con-
cerning the use or abuse of military terms.
" Charges" are not mere " advances" of horse or
foot, as may be seen by a reference to Decker, Bar-
dier, Burn, or Faye. A "battery" means either a
work covering and defended by guns, guns them-
selves in the field, or a division of artillery ; and, it
does not follow that a battery was "masked" be-
cause it was not observed till it opened fire. It is
only when artificial obstacles or screens of brush-
wood are used, which are thrown down when the
guns open, that the word " masked" can be pro-
perly applied to guns, and it is seldom or never
used in reference to field pieces unlimbered in woods,
and moved from time to time during the action.
So far as I can learn, there was only one work
defended by them in the immediate front of the
Federalists at Bull's Run, and that was the earth
work coveting the bridge. The guns t here were
not taken. By the words " attack," " advance,"
" guns in position," "field battery," aule-
" ep
rnents," and such plain terms, the truth is gene-
rally better conveyed than by the phrases more
favoured in these descriptions, and these are really

Ae first part of the campaign has been played
.c. That it has ended disastrously for the Fede-
ralists is to be attributed, in my mind, to the imps-
patience and ignorance of the politicians who
forced the military leaders to precipitate advances
for which they were not prepared. Up to the
time of taking an aggressive movement all had gone
well for the Union. The principal army in front of
Washington was learning its duties, and could lie
there in perfect safety. It occupied the soil of Vir-
ginia from Alexandria to the extreme western limits
of the State. McClellan and Patterson had defeated
the Secession leaders or forced them back from the
Valley of Virginia, and Johnson had taken up his
post at Winchester with no other view than to
join Johnston and Beaurega,rd in case of their
being pressed. Butler extended the limits
of his command in another part of the
State from Fortress Monroe to Hampton and
Newport News. Lyon and Siegel, moving with
caution, were gradually recovering Missouri to
the Union. But there was no pleasing the violent
and ignorant men who had the ears of the Coun-
cillors at Washington. They wanted immediate
action. They cried out "On to Richmond" when
they could scarcely march to Manassas. The army,
once set in motion, had to go on. It flew back in
fragments, and the work has all to be done over
again. In the moment of Lyon's earlier successes
I heard a Senator declare that it was not the Gene-
ral at all, but a politician who was with him as
officer of a regiment, who had done all the work,
and he implied that if General Scott were simi-
larly blessed, and subjected to the action of a poli-
tician of tact and decision, similar triumphs would
have been gained in Virginia. Now see the result.
The cause of the Union has received a heavy blow
and great discouragement, while that of disunion
has been proportionably advanced. There is
greater apprehension at this moment of an attack
on Washington than at any former time since I
have been here. General Wool, the successor of
General Butler, who was obliged to abandon Hamp-
ton, in consequence of the withdrawal of his
troops, to strengthen the army of the Potomac
after the battle of Bull's Run, is almost hemmed in
at Fortress Monroe, and is uneasy about his outly-
ing troops at Newport News. Harper's Ferry is
evacuated by the Federalists, who are concentrat-
ing, under Banks, about Point-of-Rocks, lower
down the river, and are anxious about Frederick
itself and Western Maryland. Lyon killed, his
army routed, Siegel repulsed with slaughter, the
Federalists retreating as fast as they can, the Se-
cessionists pursuing them—all that had been
gained in Missouri utterly lost for the time, the
army of the Potomac driven back to take refuge
within its lines—these things tell their own tale,
and are the best rebuke of the presumptuous men
who cast aside the lessons of experience and mili-
tary science that they might gratify their passion
and impatient desire to overcome their enemies.
They have been only saved by the weakness of
their antagonists, who as yet have developed as
little vigour in following up an advantage as if
they had been old and respectable generals on our
own home model, aided
,by regular councils of war.
The aggressive campaign has ended thus far un-
successfully for the North. The second part is yet to
come. Which will be the aggressor this time in the
fight is yet to be seen, but the indications are that
the South will try its hand in an offensive move-
ment, and, if it does, the North will, I think, have
its revenge for Bull's Rung: and, may be, a balance
to its credit on the otheriside. Whatever may be
the object in view it is certain that the Government
at Richmond is acting jf!lt intended to create
apprehensions in Washil." and thereby animate
its friends, and they are .eedingly numerous in
Maryland. There has been a gradual advance of
the Confederates towards the Upper Potomac, and
their outposts have been at the same time ostenta-
tiously drawn bac of the Federal
lines. A strong i ing near Win-
chester, which is 3r's Ferry, and
at Strasburg, wh sm Manassas.
Another corps ii oral accounts,
close to Leesburg 3 rail to Alex-
andria, and am lies between
Fairfax Courthot 1, resting on
Manassas, and coveting the roads to Washington
and the town of Alexandria. A considerable
number of scows and large flat-bottomed boats
have been collected in the creeks of the Potomac
below Washington, and it is suspected that there
are batteries at Mathias Point, which commands
the channel of,the river at a projecting spur about
55 miles below the capital, but that as yet they
have held their tongues. At Acqyia Creek, from
which the rail to Richmond, by which passengers
and traffic were usually carried in times gone by
from Washington, runs, there have been batteries
for a long time past, and it is now believed there
is a camp there, and a considerable increase to the
works. The scows, collected to the number of
500, could be loaded with guns, cavalry, and
infantry with ease, and many of them could
carry a company complete at a trip. The channel
of the river runs on an average within range of rifled
ordnance, and there is no doubt that the Confederates
are making ordnance of that nature at the Rich-
mond Foundry. From Port Tobacco, on the bank
of the Potomac, opposite Mathias Point, a march
of 25 miles would bring the Confederates behind
Washington, on the line of rail between the capital
and Baltimore and Annapolis. But the country is
difficult, intersected with streams, and ill-provided
with roads and means of communication, It is
affirmed that the Confederates could not advance
because they had no transport, and that they are
now in possession of a proper train ; but any
attempt to cross the river now would be very diffi-
cult, owing to the activity of the Government in
purchasing vessels and hastily fitting them out as
steam gunboats, to neutralise which the enemy
must erect strong batteries with guns of long range
to clear the river—a work of time if it can be done
at all. The hopes of the Secessionists are kept alive
by rumours, a sort of food which is by no means
healthy in these parts. Meantime the North is in
such a mood that the Government is encouraged to
proceed to the most extreme acts in repressing
opinions hostile to their measures. It is now a
crime against the United States to denounce the
war, or even to cry aloud for peace, and there is a
spirit abroad which promises to make the struggle
last as long as men and money can be found to
bring it to an end, The hardy fishermen who are
fostered by a system of bounties on the North-eastern
shores of the New England States have tendered
their services at sea to the Government, and the offi-
cers and men of the Mercantile Marine have also
placed at the disposal of the navy a great body of
brave sailors, who will soon be good gunners and
men-of-war's men, as good as can be needed for the
work army under M'Clellan
as The
ehat which was under
ims
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wl theyeeal haveis,ta
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ds
tshttoerr odenog . T
cannot be less than 55,000 men
around Washington this moment, without including
the force under Banks. There is an abundant sup-
ply of sailors for such ships as the Government can
provide, and they are determined to act on the
rivers as well as on the seacoast the moment they
can do so. The following is a description of the
gunboats which are required for the former work
in the Government tenders and specifications :
" The load draught of water not to exceed 6 feet
9 inches, to be armed with two rifled guns of
7,0001 b. each, one at each end of the vessel ; also
with two 12-pound howitzers ; the complement to
be 100 persons, with provisions for 60 days, to have
2,000 gallons f water in tanks, and to be provided
with a condenser for distilling potable water; to be
schooner rigged, and have a rudder at each end pro-
perly protected by a post."
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