The New York herald., 1865-06-25

RAPD RECONSTRUCTION AT THs NonTn.-The
adaptability Of the American people to all cir
cumstances is something remarkable o fact
which is very strongly demonstrated by present
events On the first Of May we were in the
midst of great war. We had six or seven
hundred thousand men in the field. It is not
yet the first Of July, but General Grant wins
victory, and affairs have almost entirely re-
turned to their old channels. Our soldiers are
falling in quietly TO the ranks Of private life.
AS fast as they are mustered out they become
absorbed in the general body Of citizens and
with 30 little show or confusion that we hardly
notice the transition from the soldier to the
civilian, after the regiments have marched
home. All those who do not find immediate
employment in their former line Of life are ac-
cepting the opportunity to migrate to the
mineral regions Of the Pacific slope, where they
will find plenty Of profitable employment for
their labor and experience. Several of our
most prominent officers, major generals and
brigadier generals, who have been mustered out
of service, have resumed civil occupations of
various kinds Some are going to mining,
others to the practice of the law, and so on.
One of them-General Rosecrans, soldier who
has conducted large armies to victory and
borne the brunt of war--is directing his attenr
ton to the establishment Of Institutes for the
peaceful study of technology. Another, General
Cox, has become gubernatorial candidate in
Ohio. And so with all, both soldiers and
generals, the transition from the pursuits of
war to those Of peace becomes easy and natural,
so great is the adaptability of our people TO
every circumstance that may arise.
STARVATION AT THE SourH.-The all-absorbing
question now pressing upon the inhabitants Of
the late rebellious States is not negro equality
negro suffrage or any other political issue,
but the naked question of life or death. All
through the war we contended that the rebel
lion would fail mainly from the shortness of
its means Of subsistence The productive soil
of the South may be made to support a hundred
millions of people; but in drawing of from its
sparse population the mass of its able-boded
and intelligent men into the business of the
wa., II was apparent to us from the beginning
that the subsistence Of the Southern armies and
the Southern people would fail them in the
midst Of their struggle. So it has turned out
We have seen it with every step Of our armies
into the heart Of the late so-called confederacy;
we have seen 1t from Memphis to vicksburg,
from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, from that point
to Savannah, and from Columbia to Richmond.
General Grant was not long in making the dis
hat iha hall; ala L.
he exhausted it, and il collapsed.
Now the picture Of Southern exhaustion pre-
sented almost surpasses belief The Augusta
(Ga) Transcript says, for instance, that "the
system Of plunder (by disbanded and hungry
rebel soldiers), inauguratsd in some of our
Southern cities will, unless speedily arrested,
bring the whole people TO starvation" and
then mentions the sacking of Camden, S. c.,
after this fashion. "The mob began with at
tacks upon the public stores, then private
stables were sacked, then the supplies gathered
at the depots for the suffering and starving
poor of the city were carried of, then the
wagons which brought in the charities Of other
cities were emptied, and even the mules were
taken from them, and then the cows upon
which poor widows and orphans depended for
support" Similar scenes are reported in va
rious other places, from the Caroinas to
Texas. To both races, whites and blacks, from
the Potomac river to the Gulf of Mexico, the
all-engrossing question is now the question Of
subsistence, the question of food, not only for
the next winter but for the present day.
1t becomes, therefore, the first duty of the
government, in its work of reconstruction, to
save the starving masses OF the Southern peo-
pie alive, whites and blacks, as far as possible,
and to haImopiza them Ia their sir,rala Cor az