The Sun. — 1862-12-20 (London, England)

CHESTERFIELD. The Royal Commissioners were much obliged, but they would rather not.  We would recommend to all who wish for some authentic information on the temper, spirit, and resources of the South in carrying on the present war, a small duodecimo by a New Yorker, " Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army." After reading it, nothing will be plainer than that any communications from " own correspondents" at Richmond, or any other place in the South, are of the smallest possible value. So strict is the supervision of every person, of all the journals, and even of the Postoffice itself, that nothing disadvantageous to the South is suffered to leave it. The young writer of this story was, so early as the beginning of 1861, forced to volunteer into the Rebel army, merely in consequence of having written in a letter home— " This is a hard place to live in, as I had to ride ten miles to get paper and ink to write this letter." This led to his being brought before a low, drinking, violent Vigilance Committee in Arkausas, where he had been quietly and industriously earning his living, observing the utmost prudence on the subject of slavery. But he was a Northern man, did not speak so well as he ought to do of the semi-savage district he was in, and it was by the merest good luck, the better temper of two or three of the committee, and the exhibition of two six-barrelled revolvers, thnt he got a vote of acquittal. One fellow went out and brought a rope to hang him into the room; and, after his acquittal, he thinking it wiser immediately to leave, and having taken a boat to Memphis, one of these fellows got there before him with the letter—a policeman took him before another committee there, and he was again offered the alternative, in no equivocal terms, of volunteering into the Southern army, or of being hung! His very entrance into the rebel army indicates the character of the men who have no terms of vituperation bad enough for Mr. LINCOLN'S arrests, and for General BUTLER'S rule. And Memphis, where he was thus dealt with, is the commercial capital of Tennessee. From other instances which occur in his narrative it is clear that this compulsion of Union men to serve in the rebel army was universal. We are all shocked at the brutality of Genera] M'NEIL, and think that execution is too good for him; yet only in regard to the number of the sufferers did this savage outdo what the rebel officers also do in cool blood. Two brothers, of the name of ROWLAND, in Eastern Tennessee, while the rebels were raising a force there, differed in opinion respecting the war. The younger was vehemently loyal. They compelled him to enlist. He protested in vain, always telling them he would desert on the first opportunity. The opportunity occurred at the capture of Fort Donelson, when he joined the loyal army. After this he was amongst some prisoners taken at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and was actually captured by the very regiment to which he had previously belonged by compulsion. Some in their fury attempted to kill him on the spot ; but he was reserved for a more formal fate. No mere guerilla captain like M'NEIL, bat the general of division, IiARDEE, ordered him to be shot. The general was indeed ashamed to witness the execution ; but he was shot, dying most courageously and loyally, with just the same revolting parade and formality as that practised by M'NEIL, and some 10,000 troops were called out to witness this murder ! Missouri might well reply to the demand for M'NEIL by a demand for the surrender of General