AMERICA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1193, 6 February 1864, Page 3

AMERICA.

Queenstown, Thursday Morning. The In man steamer City of Baltimore, from New York, October 24, has arrived.

General Meade has returned to his command after an interview with the President, which is stated to have been satisfactory. It is said that the General made a frank statement concerning the' peremptory instructions lately received by him to compel General Lee to accept a fight, which not having been able to carry out to the letter, he declared himself willing and ready to resign his command. The President declined to entertain any such proposition, and General Meade has accordingly gone back to his post. A correspondent of the' New York Times,' with the Army of the Potomac, .writes a lengthened review of the last campaign. He says:—

"The army of the Potomac has at length 1 settled down after its great race up and down Virginia, The whirl, and bustle, and confusion of the backward and the forward movement have so far given place to calmer moods that it is possible now to survey with some satisfaction the series of complicated and exciting events whose relationsand upshot it was at the time impossible to grasp. It must be acknowledged that the campaign of the past fortnight has not been one that lias brought much glory to either army. The operations, with the exception of a variety of skirmishes and the one considerable brush at Eristoe, have all beeii of the kind included under the term strategy—that is, marches and manoeuvres out of sight of the enemy. The rebels have inflicted no great damage on us. We have inflicted no great daniage on the rebels. In truth, the real results of this invasive movement 011 the part of General Lee are to be sought for not so much in anything that has been accomplished here in Virginia as in the relations of operations here to the whole field of war. Jn this regard it .remains to be seen how far the progress and fortunes of the war will be affected by the late rebel movement. At present it assumes the character of a diversion in favour of operations in the South-West. There is not the shadow of a doubt that a considerable portion of the troops with which Lee threw back Meade are now on their way to reinforce the rebel army in Tennessee for active work against some portion of the great line now being held by the Union forces, from Chattanooga to the Gaps of Virginia."

His explanation of the Confederate object is as follows

"It is said that the movement was made for the purpose of throwing the army of Potomac back on Washington, and then utterly destroying the railroad connecting Meade's army on the line of the Rapidan with its base, thus relieving Richmond from the standing menace which our occupation of that front of operations held out, exhausting the season during which it is possible for us to make a full campaign, and throwing us over till next spring, when the dissolution of our army and prospective rebel operations in the South-west would secure them peace. These views were stated to me as those of the rebel leaders by (among many others) an intelligent and cultivated Englishman named Green, who lives in the style of an English gentleman on a charming estate at Greenwich, a few miles north of Warrenton, and with whom Generals Lee and Ewell and their respective staffs stayed last Sunday, while on the retreat. Such was the theory given out by the rebels on their backward movement. And though, perhaps, not the whole truth, it is, doubtless, a large element in it. A plan of campaign, such as that on which General Lee lately entered, embraces, doubtless, a complex of aims; and there can be no doubt that, if the rebel Generalissimo had been able to plant himself in a favourable position on Meade's communications, he would have given battle. The desperate dashes which they made at our trains show, too, how greedy they were for booty. With these addenda we have, perhaps, the whole of the series of motives that prompted Lee to the forward movement. There is no probability that he ever purposed crossing the Potomac for a fresh invasion of Maryland or Pennsylvania. There is, on the contrary, very great certainty that he did not design such a movement, for his army brought no pontoon train, a fact in itself conclusive against any such design, and further corroborated by the limited quantity of supplies he had with him. As to the results of the movement, the rebels did not succeed in any considerable captures; the movements of the lieutenants on whom Lee relied to execute his plans were too slow; the retrograde movement of Meade too swift and too skilful, to afford him the fitting opportunity for battle, SMthe one practical result obtained is the destruction of the railroad, and what that involves."

With regard to the destruction of the railroad by the Confederates, he says: — " This work has been very thoroughly done, Lee's whole army having been engaged on it for two days.From Bristoe to the Rappahannock, the destruction is complete—bridges burnt, culverts blown up, ties taken up and burnt, rails twisted and rendered -useless, cuts filled up, &c. The engineers say that it will be at least a month before it can be again put in running order. It is with no small mortification, therefore, that we have to confess the rebels have achieved an end fully commensurate with the labor and risk of the campaign." The repairs are estimated to cost $30,000 a mile, for 24 miles. A Washington dispatch of the 23rd says: — " Cavalry reconnaissances are continued on our part as far as the Rappahannock. The Orange aud Alexandria Railroad has already been repaired one mile beyond Bristoe Station. Forces are engaged day and night in repairing the damages of the enemy. Reports from the army say the discipline and morale of the army were never better than' at the present time, and both officers and men have the greatest confidence in the ability of General Meade."

The outcry against G-eneral Rosencranz is sought to be explained by the following statements, which the ' Courrier des Etats TJnis' makes 011 the authority of a Cincinnati correspondent:—

"Persons who are on intimate terms with General Rosencranz declare that he is greatly discouraged about the war. This is not because he considers the Southern armies invincible, but because he believes that the seceded States can never be brought back by the rigorous policy which the Government has adopted. lie has never taken any part in the, proceedings of Andrew Johnson, the Military GWyernor of Tennessee, who has succeeded in converting to concession ail people who had any hopes of the Union. Himself perfectly disinterested, he looks with disgust upon the shameful traffic which is going on under the mask of patriotism. When he looks around him he sees men moved by all sorts of motives, more or less decent, excepting honor and the love of country. Some are fighting from ambition, others from avarice; to the latter the conquest of a country means only pillage and cheap cotton; the former are jealous of their superiors and their equals, and are delighted with any reverse which may overtake them. Profoundly honest a.nd religious, Rosencranz regards these spectacles with bitter aversion. His religious feelings have grown upon him in proportion to the excesses and intrigues which he is impotent to prevent, and in mystical hopes of another world lie seeks relief from the corruption of the present. He no longer fights with any ardor, but simply from a sense of duty, considering each victory a useless waste of blood. He has 110 confidence in his successes, considering that they are followed by the swoop of birds of prey, whose rapacity makes hopeless the pacification of the country All these details come to me from a person very dear to Rosencranz, to whom the General wrote that, he saw in the defeat of Clricamauga the finger of God." —Times, Nov. 11.