The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-05 00:00:00

0 X F 0 it D,

6, OXFORD-STREET.

This noble building being now completed, its architectural
beauty, elegance of ornamentation, and brilliancy of lighting
render it one of the sights of the metropolis. Open-Every
Evening. The programme is varied, and includes Selections
(by a full company of principals, powerful band, and chorus)
from " Macbeth" and "Un Ballo in Maschera." both operas
by Verdi, the composer of thd day—The wonderful Solos oa
the Cornet-a-Piston of the renowned LEVY—Scotch Duets by
the Misses Stuart, and other vocal and instrumental music
of the highest order. Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans. The
Comic portion of the entertainment is supported by Miss
Green, Messrs. Sam Collins, Harvey, and French (the_Nerves),
Ad
W. H. Wieland, E. Marshall. and W. Randall. mi_s 10 n,
Hall, sixpence ; Balcony and Stalls, one shilling. Private
Boxes, 108. td.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tnts DAY.—Morning, 12h. 58m.—Afternoon, 1h.24m.
To-Atoußow.-Morning, lh. 44m.—Afternoon,' 2h. Gm.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, AUGUST 4, IS6I.
THEEMOXETEE, IN THE SHADS.
66 —highest since noon yesterday.
59—lowest this morning and during the night.
70—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.08.
WlND—South-Westerly—fresh and squally, but fine
weather.

AUGUST 5.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
71--highest since noon yesterday.
55—lowest this morning and during the night.
71—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.98.
WlND—South-Westerly; fresh, and fine.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1881.

At length this terrible C:vil War in America has
commenced in real earnest. The first of many battles,
we fear, has been fairly fought out between the bel-
ligerents. The consequences of this earliest collision
between the opposing armies of Federalists and
Confederalists being apparently—at the first blush
—something tremendous. Certainly, if we could
persuade ourselves to read with belief some of the
instructions coming flashing to us through the
Telegraph, we should be led to suppose that the
war has just now not only been at length

commenced, but that it must have been already
by this time pretty well terminated. It
is only reasonable, however, upon all accounts
to accept the news pouring in upon us, for
just what it is worth in itself, without jump-
ing immediately to any precipitate conclusions.
Everyone in this country will, as a matter of course,
eagerly devour the intelligence now brought to us
from the opposite shores of the Atlantic—but it will
be as well to devour it cum grano salts. Under-
taking dispassionately to devour it thus, and thus
only, we find the facts of the case to unfold them-
selves to view in the manner following :

On the twenty-first of July—a date henceforth
memorable in the annals of America—a Battle of
considerable importance was fought at the Manassas
Junction between the Federal army of the North,
under General M'DowELL, and the Southern army
of the Confederates, under President JEFFERSON
DAYE; (at the centre) as Commander in-Chief, with
General JOHNSTON in command of the left wing,
and General BEAUREGARD in command of the
right- General MiDowELL having no more than
from 15,000 to 20,000 of the Federal troops alto-
gether with which to confront a formidable and
indeed overwhelming, mass of from 90,000 to
100,000 Confederates, with the Southern Pre-
sident as their Generalissimo. As at Marengo,
those who were eventually defeated before sunset at
Manassas were, in the early part f
o the engagement,
the seeming conquerors. After nine hours
fighting, the action beginning shortly after
dawn at Bull Run, about three miles from the
Junction at Manassas, the advantage appeared to
rest entirely with the Federalists. There was great
loss upon both sides by the end of that nine hears,
engagement, but—as the most conspicuous result
of it—three of the Confederate Batteries were cap-
tured by the Northerns.

Thereupon, however, the tables appear to have
been completely turned—and with a vengeance. As
leader of the Confederates, General BEAUREGARD,
found the army under his command reinforced,
about this time, by the opportune arrival of 25,000
under General JOHNSTONE. The total number of
the Southern troops thus massed together at Man-
assas being stated by one account as being very litt_e
short of 100,000—as being at the least some 90,000
men altogether. A stupendous disadvantage for the
Federal army under Gen. M'DOWELL—notwith-
standiug the prestige obtained after nine hours'
fighting by the seizure of those three batteries at
Bull Run from the Confederates.

The same identical words that passed between
DEssAix and BONAPARTE upon the field of Marengo
--might have passed at this momentous junc-
tll TE--(probably something like this did pass)
upon the field of Manassas between JOHN STONE
and BEAUREGARD. History has related it once—
and it may again, for, as we all know, it is full of
repetition. The COMMANDER-IN-CHlEF—(putting
up his watch after a glance at it)--"General, there
is yet time for another engagement !" Thus, lite-
rally, it happened at Marengo. Thu apparently,
to all intents and Imrpoles, it came to pass at
Manassas. The nano hoti„,
The capture of
P fighting went
for nothing.
the three batteries
went for nothing. The Confederates there,
en masse 25,000 of them
freshly arrived
attacked the Union army under
General
M DowELL, with the serious consequences related
'
in a few startling sentences of the Telegram,
The
Federal army being subjected to a very

grievous discomfiture! About that, there appears
to . be nb AN whatever. ,according to the
Southerners—(this, of course, however)—th defeat
was more than simply "a defeat." It was a rout,
. _
a sauve quipeat—a panic having sprung up among
the crowd of suttlers huddled together among the
baggage waggons in the van of the Federal army
—this panic affecting the soldiers themselves by a
sort of contagion—the whole confused mass of the
Northern army flying thereupon in utter disorder in
the direction of Washington. All this intelligence
—we say again—coming to us (thus highly
coloured and strongly flavoured) from the vic-
tors of the 21st ult —from the elated Confederates.
It is impossible not to recognise at a glance, how-
ever, how extravagantly the accounts thus given to
us are exaggerated.
Look at the mere facts as they come to our
knowledge in the very telegrams ! Defeated at
Manassas, and compelled to withdraw before the
overwhelming masses of the Southern army under
General BEAUREGARD, reinforced as that army had
been by the arrival of 25,000 fresh troops under
General JOHNSTONE—we learn from the tele-
grams that General M'DOWELL endeavoured to
rally his discomfitted forces—where ? At
Centerville and at Fairfax Court House !
Vainly it is true—still according to the te-
legrams. But the very next intimation is
that the road between Centreville and Alexandria
was littered over with the dying, and the wounded,
and those who had dropped by the way from utter
exhaustion. The very next account being to the
effect that the Confederates pursued the defeated
Northerns as far as FAIRFAX ! Now, Fairfax is
but one-third of the distance from Centreville to
Alexandria—it is scarcely half the distance from
Manassas to Alexandria. Alexandria being
about the same distance from Washington
that—Fairfax is from Alexandria. And cer-
tainly if the defeat experienced by M‘DowELL
was really and truly so complete and so ir-
retrievable in itself as it is said to have
been in some of these exaggerated descriptions of
it—that the Confederates should have stopped short
at Fairfax, that they should have gone no further in
pursuit than Fairfax, that they should have ventured
no more than one-third of the way from Centreville
on the road to Alexandria, does appFar to us
upon the face of it—rather unaccountable ! More
particularly when we learn that " the whole of the
Federal artillery of rifled cannon and the Rhode
Island Battery, with large quantities of arms,
stores, and small arms, were captured by the Con-
federates." But, we also learn that, instead of
flying, routed and pell-mell, upon the capital, the
Federal army had fallen back on Alexandria. They
are still there on the Virginian soil: and they have
the satisfaction of knowing that the defences around
Washington have been reinforced so considerably
that they aro described as already strong enough
to resist any attack from the Confederates ! Nor can
this be wondered at under the circumstances. The
repulse suffered by the Northern army at the Battle
of Manassas—a repulse so serious and undoubted
that it led, as we have seen, to a.hasty retreat, first
of all to Centreville aid afterwards to Fairfax, com-
pelling the whole Federal army in fact to fall back
eventually as far as Alexandria—this unquestion-
able discomfiture, we say, of the Northerns by Presi-
dent DAVIS upon the foughten field of Manassas,
so far from auguring the rapid close in an unex-
pected manner of this terrible civil war in America,
really and truly in effect only at last just inau-
gurates it. The intelligence of the defeat of the
Federal army at Manassas, we learn, has created a
profound sensation throughout the Northern States.
Of course it has. And already we know with what
significant results. Already we know that the
defences around the capital have been increased so
considerably as to set at defiance any assault from
the side of the Confederates—that reinforcements
from all parts of the country have been telegraphed
for from Washington—that 80,000 fresh troops
"since the defeat of Manassas" have been placed
at the command of the Federal Government !
There cannot be a doubt of it, but that the
mere fact of this defeat of the Northerns at Manas-
sas upon the occasion of their first serious encounter
with thee forces of the Confederates, will kindle
with greater fury than ever the dreadful flame of
civil war in the opposing states ! The Southerners
being heartened on by the First Victory—the
Northerners being more resolved than ever to buckle
to in earnest for the encounter, if merely to wipe
out the recollection of their sudden repulse from
Manassas to Alexandria.

1 Sir G. BOWYER gained little by his questioning
, Lord PALMERSTON, on Friday night, unless he
conceives it a gain to display on every possible
occasion a monomaniacal prejudice, which blinds
him to facts that all England knows as well as all
I Italy. It required, indeed, no ordinary courage to
attempt to vindicate the hirelings of FRANCIS II
and Cardinal ANTONELLI ; who, aided by tin name
of the former, and by money and arms fur-
nished from the Holy Roman Treasury and Arsenal
by the latter, have of late disturbed the south of
Italy. We have Mr. BOW YER'S authority for it,
that these men are not brigands, but the popu-
lation of the country, retaining their loyalty to
their beloved monarch. They hated the Piedmon-
i tese, and longed for the restoration of the blessings
of a Bourbon reign ; theplebtsczte s as a farce, as the
voting was carried on by force ; and the Pied-
montese troops were at once hated by the
people, and obliged to be confined in fortresses, and
yet were dreaded by those who so shut them up !
No one would apply the ungentlemanly word to
Sir G. BOWYER. He merely " says the thing which
liquefaction
is not" -with the same undoubted faith as he would
assert the doctrine of
the
ee
blood
e f
s ImmaculateT. Conception,JAN uAni u s :
or the
or the safe accouchement of the female Bourbon at
Madrid through the presence of the arm of ST.
JOIIN the BAPTIST in her oratory. Sir G. BOWYER
is simply a man of the largestfaithe,i
orn all which
belongs to Rome, or flows from itete
incident-
ally belongs to Rome—he is what we profane be-
lievers in common worldly sources of information
should be too apt to term a credulous man. Re
can at pleasure believe all the evidence of aid from
Rome to these Neapolitan villains, the refuge they
find when hard pressed in the POPE'S little terri-
tories, to be mere fables ; or, if it better suits his
purpose, that these wretches were saints and
patriots, and that Rome honoured herself
in giving them bayonets and daggers, bul-
lets and pistols ; and giving them shelter, too,

when they fled to her for it, laden with the spoil of
the Philistines who dared to eject the LORD'S
anointed from the country he misgoverned.
Lord PALMERSTON probably thought he might

not have another opportunity before Parliament
breaks up to tell Europe his mind, and he must

have been much obliged to Sir GEORGE for giving

him an occasion of making such an avowal for the
recess; indeed, his foreign policy has been his
best " cry " in his own country; the one thing but
for which he would not probably be now in office.
We are happy to see that on this point at least there
He believed that the fact respect-
is no falling off.
ing the was that their own Govern-
ment had recalled them, as they were acknowledged
by Swiss authorities to have abused grossly the