AMERICA.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 348, 3 January 1863, Page 5

AMERICA.

' THE STRUGGLE IN MABYIAND. The campaign in Maryland,., the progress of -.which, was watched with so mu£h anxiety at the '^ date of our "last publication,, .was" brought to a * close rather suddenly than' had ; been expected. Before a week had elapsed after that date, we received the newsthat the Confederate army had ■withdrawn, or retreated, into its Own territory of Virginia, and that the military 1 positions of the opposing forces had returned to what they were in the last days of August. The main points in this short but not unimportant episode of the war may be briefly related. It will be remembered that on the -30th of August General Pope was so utterly defeated by the Confederates he was compelled to take refuge within the entrenchments around Washington. So complete seemed the destruction of the Federal army to Gen. Lee and Jefferson Davis that they at once determined to cross the Potomac, and to carry the war into Maryland and Pennsylvania. It has been said indeed that the Confederates intended nothing more than a mere raid ; but the fact that they entered. Maryland with a considerable force, and issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Sf ate, shows that they probably entertained more serious views. Nor is there any doubt that they acted upon very reasonable grounds. The occupation of Maryland was of very great consequence to the Confederate cause, and it might well seem impossible that the Federals could within a few days make any very serious opposition to an invading army. But those reasonable hopes were doomed to disappointment. Scarcely had M'Clellan assumed the chief command than he got together every man he could muster — organised, them into an army, and set out from Washington to meet the enemy wherever he could find him. His force has been estimated at 60,000 men, but in truth there is no sort of evidence as to the real numbers of the army which he succeeded in taking into the field. • Before, or soon after, M'Clellan left Washington, the Confederate troops under Lee, as our . readers will recollect, had crossed into Maryland. ; They occupied Frederick City, which is some 60 miles north-west of Washington and 10 miles i north of the Potomac, which comes down from the north-west towards the capital. Having done this, they advanced from Frederick City up to Hagerstown, a distance of twenty-five miles, . and threatened to enter Pennsylvania. M'Clellan reached Frederick City on September 12, having marched some 60 miles, and occupied that town ' without opposition. About two miles beyond Frederick the road crosses a ridge called the Kittoctan Mountains, and after passing through Middletown, which lies in a valley, crosses another ridge called South Mountain. This last ridge is pierced by two roads ; the more northerly passes - through Turner's Gap, and is the main turnpike road to Boonesboro and Hagerstown ; the more southerly, distant from the former about five miles, passes through Crampton's Gap, and then turning .northward joins the road to Boonesboro and Hagerstown. Such being the field operations, the events which-took place from the 12fch September when M'Clellan reached Frederick City are readily intelligible. Having left Frederick City in his progress westward, he crossed the Kittoctan Mountains, descended into the valley, passed through Middletown, and neared the South Mountain, near Turner's Gap. This the Confederates occupied. It was Sunday, the 14th September. The same day M'Clellan attacked both sides of the gorge and carried it. The Confederates retreated the next morning towards Boonesboro. But it is clear that only part of the Confederates were present at Turner's Gap. We hear of Longstreet coming back from Hagerstown, and it is known that " Stonewall " Jackson had been en- . gaged in taking Harper's Ferry on Monday, the 15 th September. The truth probably is that General Lee thought it impossible for M'Clellan to collect a sufficient force to enable him to make his way through a mountain gorge held by his troops ; M'Clellan, however, drove the Confederates from their position. The fighting was continued with doubtful success on Monday, the 16th. The 16th September, as General M'Clellan said in one of his despatches, " was chiefly passed in deploying his forces and gaining positions;" preparing in fact, for the real contest, which took place on the 17th. By that time " Stonewall " Jackson, having liberated the prisoners whom he took at Haiper's Ferry on parole, and having according to the New York Tribune, captured 10,000 stand of arms, 40 cannon, and cartridges •and stores, had recrossed to the north side of the Potomac, and rejoined the Confederates. What numbers were engaged on the 17th on both sides is not stated, but the conflict appears to have very obstinate. It continued from dawn till dusk, { and as General M'Clellan estimates the loss on ' his own side to have been, from .6,000 to 10,000 men, the battle must have raged fiercely the ■whole day. Darkness, we may assume, put an end to the struggle, as the two armies remained nearly on the ground they occupied. The field was the, rolling ground northward and southward of the Antietam Creek, an affluent of the Potomac. On the night of the 16th a strong Federal division had been pushed across the creek, under Hooker, to attack the enemy's flank. The other point of assault was to be a stone bridge, by which Bumside was to cross, and assail the right Confederate flank. The contest commenced with Hooker's command, and with a gradual advance, accompanied by most desperate fighting, against the Confederate resistance. The advance brought the Federals near the thick, woods at the rear of the ' enemy's position, in which they--had concealed their supports. A. terrible ,Jire opened from them, a.nd drove the Northern fflorces back again over the ground they had won ; | and this ground-in) front -of the wood was lost, gained, and once more lost, as fresh troops came up,, or as those engaged faltered before the marksmen of the South. It was in wresting the cover from the Confederates that Hooker received his wound, and that so many general and commissioned officers lost their lives. But the " Hougomont" of ' the Maryland' battle was again relinquished at 1 o'clock in the day, and again retaken by the Maine and Vermont men at a later period, not to be afterwards surrendered. By this time Bumside was making his advance, after \

a continued cannonade on the Federal left, and had won the stone bridge under a desperate fire. The- delay that ensued ,here led probably to Hooker's difficulty on the, light ; for, while Bumside had not .crossed, Lee could spare forces against him; Burnside was not over the creek till 3 p.m., and once beyond it M'Clellan sent him. word, to advance and take the batteries in front of him at any cost. Along four miles of battle ground at this time, heavy artillery' was in constant discharge under the ..hot afternoon sun. Burnside took the nearest battery, and' the Confederates withdrew the farthest of the two opposed to him, thus yielding an important point ■on their right. ■ But this point was immediately assailed again, from fresh positions, by • the Southerners, who massed a force, and pressed Burnside with the rifle and bayonet. Such a moment was undoubtedly an anxious one for M'Clellan, who had, however, still 15,000 men in reserve under Porter. The correspondent whose account we follow, thus describes the crisis as an eye-wit-ness : — " Burnside's messenger rides up. His message is, 'I want troops and. guns. If you do not send them I cannot hold my position for half an hour.' M'Clellan's only answer for the moment is a glance at the western sky. Then he turns and speaks very slowly. ' Tell Gen. Burnside that this is the battle of the war. He must hold his ground till dark at any cost. I'll send him Miller's battery. I can do nothing more. I have no infantry.' Then, as the messenger was riding away, he called him back. ' Tell him if he cannot hold, his ground, then the bridge, to the last man ! always the bridge ! If the bridge is lost, all is lost." Assistance seems to have been sent to Burnside ; and with the retirement of the Confederates the battle was put an end to by nightfall. The right had been therefore held, and the bridge and the advances beyond made good ; but no more immediate success could be claimed for this hard fought day. Both sides had contested it with desperate valour ; and both discontinued it with enormous losses. On the ISth Sept. little occurred beyond skirmishing, at least on the Federal side. It appears that the day was employed by the Confederates in making their retreat southwards in good order and unmolested. On the morning of the 18th M'Clellan perceived that his opponents were moving ; but he evidently could not follow them closely enough to ascertain in what direction they were going. "I do not know," we find him saying in a despatch written on the morning of the 18th, "if the enemy is falling back to an inferior position, or crossing the river." He added, however — "We may safely claim the victory for ours." It was only in a later despatch, written after he had discovered the direction the Confederates had taken, that he ventured to announce the victory as complete, observing, " The enemy is driven back into Virginia ; Maryland and Pennsylvania are now safe." It will be seen that all the engagements by which Maryland was recovered from the Southern invasion were fought within a limited space of ground. Of the 20 counties into which the State is divided, the Confederates seem never to have held more than portions of two — less than half the county of Frederick and a corner of its northwestern neighbor, which, to add to the confusion of American topography, bears the same name as the Federal capital, Washington. The road from Frederick City to Hagerstown and the Potomac, running with many curves, but in its general direction parallel to the road, are the limits of the part of Maiyland into which the Southern army advanced. It is a strip, about 24 miles long and 10 miles broad, a very small fraction indeed of the whole territory. But from Harper's Ferry northward are the upper fords of the Potomac, by which the river can be easily crossed at several points. The battle of the 17th was fought near Sharpsburg, and it was by the bridge at Shepherdstown and the fords abo ye and below it that the Confederates crossed th^iktomac into Virginia. The distance of these pcflßst from Sharpsburg is only four miles. The army, it is stated, began to pass the river early on the night of the 18th. But if its numbers were as large as they have been described the operation must have required many hours to complete. It is probable that the Confederates were crossing during the whole day of the 18th, while the skirmishing spoken of was kept up in the rear. The pursuit could not have been closely pressed, as it was only " during the night" that McClellan " advanced a battery, and shelled the Confederates" from the heights on the river. But he saw only the skirts of the retiring enemy. "Stonewall" Jackson, who conducted the retreat, had got the whole army across the Potomac with but slight loss — in the retreat itself, we presume — of men, waggons, or artillery. The list of casualties on the Federal side included so many officers of high rank that it created a feeling of dismay even in the first flush of the success. General Mansfield was killed, and no less than 13 officers of the same rank were returned by name as wounded. A special correspondent of the "Times," who writes from Baltimore, refers to the terrible sight presented on the 18th Sept. by the field of battle : — Seldom, since the world first witnessed the ravages of war, has such a scene of appalling carnage and suffering mutually appealed to heaven. It is probable that within an area of five square miles at least 30,000 dead and wounded men, the victims of the politicians of the United States, lay in every conceivable attitude of agony and pain. Every bush, every crevice of rock, every furrow of every field, had its pale and bleeding tenant, while the mangled but still living sufferer, with faint and piteous wailing, demanded water to supply his exhausted life-blood, and harrowed up the soul of the anguished observer. After see- ■ ing the hospitals at Washington and taking stock of some 20,000 sufferers in that devoted city, — after recognising the many shortcomings and deficiencies of the provision for the sick in every hospital I have seen,— the thought that at least 12,000 additional Federal sufferers, and many hundreds of Confederate wounded, thrown into Federal hands, are added to the bloody record of Washington, Baltimore, and' Philadelphia, might well freeze the heart-with horror and dismay; I will not pause to call attention to the sufferings which must await the Confederates, although it is some consolation to think that immense medical supplies fell into their hands after the second battle of BullEun. It is marvellous, in the face of this unutterable aggregation of suffering, and

woe, that men with human hearts and flesh and blood and bones of the same stuff as that which is this day writhing and quivering in every barn and building within twenty miles of the battlefield, should not endeavour to put some stop to an. effusion of blood which has never been paralleled in times known to histoiy. But Mr. Seward is described as being in rapturous spirits, and never to have been more light-hearted or gay. It is to the honor of. American womanhood that Miss Dix and some companions have not been deaf to the appalling cry of agony going up from Antietam Creek, but have repaired to the scene of action todo what they can. But if every surgeon in America had been on the spot last Thursday there would have been work for them all. In the immediate vicinity of Gottysville an immense hole was rapidly filled with amputated limbs. Incidents of horror enough to fill a volume, much as their insertion is discouraged in all Northern journals, meet the eye at every turn. I could quote from the papers before me, column after column descriptive of scenes which ,wonld - bp heart-rending even if they rolated to transactions enacted a thousand years ago. The Southern journals claim victory for"the Confederates in the great battle at Antietam Creek. They furnish a nnmber of details which modify in some respects the history of the Maryland campaign as narrated from Federal sources.

The Distress in the North. — As the days become shorter and more gloomy, the number of unemployed half-starved operatives in the north steadily increases, and their prospects get more and more wintry and bleak. Genuine alarm is now felt on the subject, and a large amount of sympathy and commieeration is manifested. And they require it all. From the latest report of Mr. Farnall, the poor law special commissioner, it appears that out of a body of 325,240 operatives in the cotton manufacturing districts, no fewer than 143,172 are wholly out of employment, and that 12i>,414 are working short time. Beckoning their wives and children, the number of compulsorily idle and. destitute probably reaches half a million. Week by week, too, it is increasing, while tho resources from the rates must necessarily be diminishing. In fact, many of the poorer class of ratepayers have been themselves reduced by the pressure of rates and the falling off of business to a statp of destitution. The small tradesmen, dependent on the spendings of the population, are rapidly disappearing in the general ruin. The savings of years and other such independent resources are nearly all gone ; and hundreds of thousands of people, accustomed by means of their honest industry to live in comfort and in houses displaying taste, if not elegance, are now reduced to cold, bare, comfortless rooms, with, on an average, Is 3d to Is6d a week to each person to buy food, fuel, and clothing, and to pay rent. The Prince of Wales returns to England for his birthday, although not for its public celebration. He will remain in seclusion with Her Majesty at Osborne. But we are happy to say that His Eoyal Highness has declared his intention to appear in public early in the ensuing year, when he will preside at the distribution of medals and certificates of honorable mention at the International Exhibition. No form or ceremony of any kind will be observed on the 31st October, when the doors will be closed. The building will be afterwards thrown open at a higher rate of entrance for a fortnight, to enable the contributors to effect the sale of their goods. The King of Italy has at last signed a decree granting an amnesty to all persons engaged in the recent insurrectionary moA r ement, except the soldiers who deserted from the royal army. It is said that the young Italian Princesses, on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Maria Pia to the King of Portugal, begged this boon from their father ; and we learn also that Cialdini withdrew his opposition on behalf of the army, and that "permission" was accorded from Biarritz ; so that.everybody was agreed upon the measure. We had better not enquire too curiously into the means by which this wise result has been brought about, but accept it as we find it. All Italy, except Mazzini and the Pope, appear to be satisfied ; and the country is more tranquil than it has been for ages past. Even the news from Paris has not disturbed the general placidity. It has occasioned a profound sensation in the hearts of the people, but no outward manifestations of emotion. There was at first a rumour of resig- ■ nations in the Cabinets ; but ministers will keep their ground, and put their trust in Parliament, ■which, on this account, will meet earlier than usual. The ministerial crisis in Prussia has been wound up by a.covp d'etat, which excels in boldness, all circumstancess considered, the famous act of violence which, plunged Paris in blood eleven years ago. The story is brief, although its issues are more momentous than can be grasped without much patient consideration. The Commons sent up the budget to the Lords with their amendments ; the Lords struck out the amendments, and passed the budget in its original shape ; thus mutilated, it was sent back to the Commons ; the Commons pronounced the action of the Lords unconstitutional, the Lords having no right to alter a money bill, which they must either accept or reject in its entirety, and passed a resolution annulling the vote of the Upper House ; whereupon the king sent down a message dissolving, or adjourning the Parliament, and frankly announcing his determination to cany on public affairs " outside the conditions prescribed by the constitution;" that is to say to dispense with the constitution,' and take the government, legislative and executive, into his own hands. A few weeks will disclose the first consequences of this outrage upon popular rights. It has all the advantages of being unmistakeable in its character, and of having been accomplished in the open daylight. One almost holds one's t breath while the people of Prussia are gathering themselves up for the vindication of their constitution. The King has assured a deputation that waited upon him shortly after the dismissal of the Parliament, that he is resolved at all :,h.azards tc maintain the position, he has taken up. ' Garibaldi's healti|j|&,deciining. It is believed that the bullet is iwjws wound, and that he is too weak to bear amputation.. His friends entertain the most serious apprehensions for the result.