THE WAR IN AMERICA.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 45, 14 April 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the London Times, Jan. 26.) New York, Jan. 10. The full of obstinate battles of Murfreesborough that have at length been received from the correspondents of the daily press, confirm the impression on the minds of those who studied with attention the first confused and often contradictory telegrams, that General Rosencranz has rescued the Republic from a great humiliation by dint both of consummate strategy and of great personal valor ; but that he has not gained a decisive victory. Rosencranz and Bragg are both in a position to renew the struggle. Both suffered severely. Both acquitted themselves as good generals and brave soldiers. And if the victory remained with Rosencranz, as it must be conceded that it did* Bragg is not crushed, but still bold and defiant and inclined 16 be aggressive. The battles of Murfreesborough, severe as they were, seem but to have been the prelude to a still more tremendous struggle in Tennessee. In the meanwhile Rosencranz is the hero of the hour. His success is the greatest that any Federal general has achieved since M ( Clellan saved the capital at Antietam, and the people are not only loud in his praise* but express their gratitude by hoping that they may yet be indebted to his military genius for many similar favorsi The expedition to Vicksbtirg has not been so successful. The fighting before that obstinate fortress was as severe as at Murfreesborough, lasted as long, and was accompanied by as fear* ful a loss of life on both sides ; but the Confederates, by superior generalship and audacity, as well as by more intimate knowledge of the country, contrived to concentrate an immense force at the point at a moment when the Federal commander was utterly unprepared for its reception, and when he was deprived of the anticipated assistance of the Federal flotilla under Commodore -Farragut, detained below Port Hudson* three hundred miles further down the Mississippi. The result was a signal defeat of the Federal army. President Davis, in a late address to the Legislature of Mississippi, insisted upon the immense importance to the Southern cause of defending both Vicksburg and Port Hudson to the last extremity. Vicksburg has answered his expectations thus far; it remains to be seen whether Port Hudson will be as creditably tip to the mark, and whether the combined forces of General Banks and Commodore Farragut operating against that place will be sufficient to clear the river to that point. If they do there will be a new struggle at Vicksburg, more obstinate than the last, in which both parties will put forth their uttermost sti'ength, and which may prove to be the greatest and most important battle of the war. Notwithstanding the gleam of good cheer thrown over the popular heart by the gallantry and success of Roseucranz* the general aspects of the war are not encouraging to the Northern mind. Nothing is heard from the army of the Potomac. It is neither in winter quarters nor in activity. General Burnside is extinguished — perhaps in his own. estimation, certainly in that of the country — and his army, once the hope of the Federal cause, is dark in the eclipse of popular neglect. No one speaks of it or speculates on its movements or fate* The President's proclamation of emancipation is a severe stumbliug block to men's minds. People begin to despair of the fortunes of a republic of which the chief magistrate can find no weapon so ready to his haud to damage his foes as an incentive to a war of races. The Border States ave moody and discontented. Their slaves, notwithstanding that their: masters are or are supposed to be loyal, are asserting or achieving their freedom, in defiance of Mr Lincoln's limitations, and an agitation is spreading, of which the results threaten to be disastrous both to the white man and the black. But Nero continues to fiddle or to jest. Gold, the sensitive barometer of the fears of commerce, points to the high figure of thirty-nine per cent, premium, the highest it has yet attained ; and clear headed men of business, mistrusting everything else as unsubstantial and illusory, ai'e hastening to invest their superabundant dollars in houses and land. Within the last few days there has been a perfect rush of capital in that direction, and the chances are that it will increase in. proportion to the alarm of the public at the prospects before the country. The ordinary ruck of speculators has been wild with excitement, and Wall-street for the last few days has exhibited a spectacle that is but too surely the sign and forerunner of a commercial collapse. The probability, if not the certainty, of an immediate issue of green-backs — put down one day at fifty million dollars only "to pay the arrears due to the army,'' and on another at nine hundred million " to meet the necessities of tho government 1 ' — has opened the floodgates of speculative greediness. Men that were poor last Monday are rich today, and may be poor again next weekj Madness rules the hour. Mr Chase, the great magician whose too poten^ wand has wrought the mischief, has ar^ rived in town, alarmed apparently the efficacy of his own spells He ha s 'come, it is said, to consult some of the Nestors of finance and banking as to* what shall be done to allay the excitement. The message of Governor Seymour' to the Legislature at Albany is more emphatic than his friends expected. Cautious as well as bold, it is entirely satisfactory to the Conservative pirty r throughout the North. Had there oeen* •ix months ago a governor as strongly

pledged to support the law and constitution of the State, the Federal Administration would have been saved from many aggressions on popular rights which have scandalized it in the eyes of the American people 'as well as of the ■world. The habeas corpus would not have been suspended, innocent men and women would not hare been torn from their homes and confined in dungeons and bastiles on the testimony of spies and informers, and the Secretary of State and the late and present Secretaries of War would not have been exposed, as they now are, to the penalties of the State iaws for acts of injustice committed in obedience to what they considered a Federal necessity. Mr •Seymour's election was the first proof of their unpopularity, .which Mr Lincoln and his advisers condescended to accept. Prior to that event they seemed to labor under the impression that the Northern people were willing to pay the price of their own liberty for the restoration of the Union ; that whatever Mr Lincoln might " decree" or " proclaim'' was as binding as the ukase of a Ozar or the hatti- sheriff of a Sultan, and that he and his ministers were only responsible to God and their consciences for all public and private injury and wrong which they might inflict in the prosecution of the war. The Democratic victories undeceived them, and forced the Administration back into the paths of legality. Mr Seymour's enunciation of his policy as Governor of the chief State of the Union — a State that has a constitution as sacred as that of the Federation — will keep them there, unless they choose to risk a collision that might end in bloodshed. Of this, however, there is little probability ; and the little has been made less by the vigorous action which Mr Seymour has taken, and which all the other Democratic State governors will strengthen and extend. When Mr Seymour leaves the question of State Jand individual rights, and approaches the greater question of the war and the restoration of the Union, his views are as rosecoloured as those .of Mayor Opdyke, General Banks, and President Lincoln. To his mind, as to theirs, war is not wholly an evi] ; and geography seems imperatively to forbid a severance between the north and the South. He declares that war alone will not save the Union, but that it is to be saved, as he hopes and believes, it can only be by compromise and conciliation, and a yielding to the South in the matter of Slavery. He either does not know or will not prematurely confess that no possible compromise or amount of conciliation—no guarantees whatever which the North could or would give to respect the existence of Slavery in the South, would induce the Southern leaders and the Southern nation to reenter into political partnership with a people whom the events of the contest have taught them to abhor. The North does not yet bate the South, for it is only in a few Northern pulpits that unchristian feelings are expressed towards the slaveowners, but the South detests and abominates the North with a hatred scarely to be paralleled in modern times, and which was only equalled in bygone days by the fiendish animosities between the Christian and the Moslem, or the Spaniard and the Moor. Whatever geography may seem to prescribe, social antagonism and repulsion will work to a different end. Mr Seymour thinks "that the condition of the country is not hopeless unless it be made so by the passions and prejudices which are inconsistent with the government of a great nation " — forgetting that these very passions and prejudices are in full play, and that every day makes them fiercer and more obstinate, both in the South and in the North. It is his policy, and that of bis party, for the present, to perist in the prosecuticm of the war. The day for proposing- an armistice has not come, but it is coming. In the meantime he insistslthat under no circumstances can the division of the Union be conceded. To save it, the Democratic party, for whom he speaks, "will put forth every exertion of power ; they will use every policy of conciliation ; they will hold out every inducement to the people of the South to return to their allegiance •, they will guarantee them every right demanded by the Constitution, and by that fraternal regard which must prevail in a common country, but they will never voluntarily consent to the breaking up of the Union/' But unfortunately the fraternal feeling has long ago been extingished. It scarcely survived the attack on Fort Sumter. It is idle to say that it must prevail, — when it has ceased to prevail, — and when provocatives to a negro insurrection are considered legitimate warfare. It is not thus that the South and the North cau be made to love each other. It is equally vain to insist that under "no'' circumstances will a division of the Union be conceded. When such a great and unmistakeable " circumstance '' as physical force is the ultimate and only arbiter who can deal with the question ? The South knows that its independence will not be conceded, but it knows at j the same time that it may be extorted, j Hence the war will continue till one or the other party is conquered or ex* bausted,' or till mutual friends shall counsel them to peace, and bring to bear upon the result the calm, cool reason of which both are deprived by the blinding passions and maddening animosities of the struggle. Mr Seymour speaks of the Northern as if it were as much a unit in interest, sentiment, and passion as it is in' government. But this is not the fact. - The New England States are fighting for the abolition of Slavery and for a high protective tariff, by which their manufacturers may enrich themselves at the expense of the community. The Western States are fighting for free

tiade with the South and free access to the ocean through the great artery of j the Mississippi, caring nothing whatever ! for the freedom of the black race, and disliking the negro as much as New England pretends to love him. New York, New Jersey, and the Middle States are righting for the restoration of the status quo ante helium, Slavery to be included if necessary. In spite of the war, this great section of the Union has a higher regard for the Southern people than it has for the New Englanders. If there be any real bond of sentiment between the three antagonistic nationalities of the North — for such in effect they are, or are rapidly becoming — it is ) to be found in their common passion for being the predomirient Power in the world, and, as such, dictating to Europe, and especially to England, which they ignorantly imagine to be worn out, effete, and at its last gasp. If the West could be assured of the freedom of the Mississippi in union with the South, and were not assured of it in union with the North, itw.ould prefer the Government of Mr Jefferson Davis to that of Mr Lincoln ; and if the Western and Middle States could effect a peaceable reunion with the South by the extrusion of New England from their political system, they would be delighted to sacrifice that tronblesome and revolutionary corner, and make a present of it to Canada, or to itself, and agree to remodel the Constitution in such a way that the abolition of Slavery could never again be agitated as a Federal question. But though Mr Seymour may seem to believe in the possibility of a restoration of the Union, there are many symptoms that Mr Lincoln is not of the | same opinion. It is not only his jocular recklessness in regard to the provocation of what Mr Seward called "social revolution with all its horrors, like the slave revolution ia St. Domingo,'* that shows him to be hopeless of reunion, but the arguments which he has employed to justify the creation of a new State out of a portion of the old Dominion of Virginia. If the Union were restored the State of Western Virginia, illegally and unconstitutionally formed, would immediately be re-absorbed into Virginia Proper, its mock Legislature and Government would be dismissed, and any armed resistance to the legitimate State Government would be properly punished as treason. But Mr Lincoln anticipates nothing of the kind. He has an eye to the future boundaries of the Northern Federation, and states, among his reasons for admitting Western Virginia into the Union as a separate state, " that it is the correct policy of the Administration to secure as much free territory as possible and with as little trouble ; " and, as his principal reason, " that he is bonnd to take care o£ his friends." A magistrate who gives such reasons for an act of such grave importance — an act certain to be annnjled if the Union be restored, and that can only remain valid if separation be the result of the war, cannot believe in the success of the efforts which he is making to conquer the South. Western Virginia, in the inevitable separation which is t© be the end of the war, must belong to the North. That is Mr Lincoln's idea. He is, therefore, quite right in securing that amount of feee territory and in taking care of his friends — leaving his enemies in old Virginia to take care of themselves in that other Federation to which their interests and sympathies impel them. The change of sentiment which has gradually taken place with regard to Mr Lincoln is such " that he who runs may read." At the commencement of his unhappy career every one was inclined to think well of him ; every possible allowance was made for the difficulties of his position. If some people doubted his capacity no one doubted his honesty. Almost everybody spoke of him with respect. But all this has changed. His inveterate habit of inopportune jesting and story-telling has had an injurious effect on his reputation. People have begun to believe that he has no heart as well as no judgment. He has taken the place of first buffoon. He has become, without his knowledge, the Joe Miller of the American people. Every idle jest or dirty witticism that grows up in the rank soil of great cities is attributed to the President. Every man who is dubious of the reception of bis own ribaldry passes it off as the last good thing said by Mr Lincoln. Were all the indecent jocularities and "broad" stories that are launched into the conversation of the people, and repeated from mouth to mouth in every place of public resort as undoubted sayings of the President, to be collected, they would form a considerable volume. Every day increases their number, and hundreds of profane jests of which he is entirely guiltless circulate with the ornament of his name, to the sad. disparagement of his dignity in the popular ! estimation, and to the real impairment ; of his usefulness as the highest public functionary in the republic. The confidence felt in him so lately as three months ago has dwindled to the lowest point, and there is scarcely a thoughtful man in the country "who would not feel a sensation of relief and gratitude if it were announced that, mistrustful of its own powers to deal with the destinies of the nation in this critical juncture, be had resigned the Presidency, and allowed Congress and the country to proceed to a new election in the mode prescribed by the Constitution. Originally, whatever was said in his disparagement waß said privately. It is now said publicly. Mr Wendell Phillips and the Rev. Dr. Cheever, on the part of the extreme Abolitionists, were the first to break silence. The newspapers — usually so leady in this country to abuse anybody—were tender of the President's good name, and treated him with a deference greater than was ever bestowed upon any of his predecessors ; but they have

at last followed the lead of the platform and the pulpit, and begun to complain, of the unseasonable jesting of one whose position is not only of the highest dignity but of the highest responsibility. And from the press and the pulpit the dissatisfaction has gone up to Congress. Yestecday Mr Saufcbiary, of Delaware, openly declared in the Senate that Mr Lincoln had treated the awful subject of a slave insurrection " with jocular and criminal indifference;" that "partisan revenge had governed the actions of his administration ;" and that " the infamy of its acts would drag it down into disgrace to the latest generations." The worst features of the case as regards Mr Lincoln's personal position is that it is not 'only extreme politicians like Saulsbury on the one hand, and Messrs Cheever and Beecher on the other, who complain, but the great bulk of quiet and respectable men of business, unconnected with political parties, who deplore and regret that the country must endure for two years longer the government of a weak and irreverent man, when it urgently needs a strong and serious one, to save it from that worse fate than southern secession — the loss of its own liberty, followed by new, secessions and a Hopeless disintegration. General Butler, who is declared by a fervent admirer standing high in the confidence of the Government "to possess | more brains than any 300 Generals in the Federal service," has been invited to a public dinner in this city by a knot o gentlemen who seem to value brains more than heart or good manners. Most of the persons who made themselves prominent in arranging the preliminaries are members of the Puritan congregation of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, and officers in the Ironsides regiment — that highly pious corps, composed entirely as its own advertisements allege, of " good young men," who never drink, or swear, or rob hen-roosts, like the profane Irish and Germans who swarm in the service of the republic. General Butler is not a Puritan himself, so that the entente cordiale which has so suddenly sprung up between him and the Puritan Church creates a certain amount of curiosity. People ask whether it is on account of his probable nomination to the command of the negro brigade, that is to carry desolation into the once flourishing plantations of the South, that he has become the model General of the Abolitionists ; or whether it is because he closed Episcopal churches ia NewOrleans, and silenced or banished Episcopal clergymen, that he has endeared himself to the Puritan heart. But, as all the Puritan churches crj out for the extermination of the Southern slaveowners, it, is most probably on ac Jount of his politics, and not on account of his religious 1 faith, that he has become their favorite. They want an exterminating General — and who would act the part so ruthlessly as Butler ? No one yetkno ( wn to fame, unless it be Mr Beecher himself, and he has refused to imitate the conduct of Bishop Polk, of the Southern army, and to don the uniform of a Brigadier or Major General. The announcement of the honor to be conferred was so distasteful in New York that General Butler, whose shrewdness is much greater than his vanity, took the alarm. Thinking it much better to refuse a public dinner than to partake of one that might cause unpleasantness, or prove a failure, he made a virtue of necessity, and declined, for the present, to be feasted. The people of New York are, for the first time, satisfied with the General, and cherish the hope that whenever a festival may be organised for his glory it may not be in their city