THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 666, 3 September 1864, Page 20

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times Correspondent.)

BAi/riMOBE, 13th June,

A story is told in Baltimore by a gentleman who was recently in Richmond, that the Southern President was asked in his presence how soon he thought the war would end ? Placing his hand upon the head of a little b r y, not five years of age, Mr Davis replied, •• Not till thie child is an old man." Mr Davis's 80rrowful anticipation is shared in this city, if not further north. All expectation that the Federals will conquer the Confederates, or the Confederates the Federals, has subsided, The exhaustion of neither party is deemed possible. The intervention of Great Britain and Prance has ceased to be looked for. The capture of Richmond, if effected — which few believe — may gratify the pride of the f orth, but will not expedite the subjugation of the South. The strength of the Confederates lies in no city and no locality, but in the hearts of a people, whom the prolongation of hostilities may exasp°rate, but can never incline to peace. The only chance that promises speedier results than Northern victory is Northern defeat, to be achieved over Grant or Sherman, it matters not which. The idea of those who see the independence of the South the only chance for the preservation of the liberties of the North is, that such a defeat in the midst of the Presidential" C3nte3t would lead to a commercial panic and a furious agitation of popular passions, out of which would spring a civil war in the North. Then it is argued the South might extort the recognition of its independence from that powerful Northern party which in such an event would certainly arise to prpvent the further disentegration of the Republic. But Federal victory will not bring Federal success, and the child will become a youth, tbe-youth a man, and the man grow gray with the burden of 70 winters before the South will learn submission. The South can bear rfefeiit. Ths question ia if the North can bear it without political convulsion. It wuuld seem, from tho plight of General Grant ; from his innetivity for the last eight days ; from the fearful losses he haa endurod ; from the readiness of General Lee to confront and foil him at any point upon which he miy select to hurl his legions; from the well-known though strenuously denied fact that the Confederates iv every battle have inflicted at least three times the damage they have sustained ; and from the fact, equally ominous, but not so stoutly contested, that a siege of Richmond might consume the summer and Grant'a army along with it by the diseases and fevers of an encampment amon? the swamps of the Cbiekahomlny, that this great question may have a speedier answer rhan most people anticipated a month ago, and that Grant's defear, or withdrawal, is not only imminent from day to day, but will be followed by comp'icati«na far graver and more peri • lous thnn attended the drawn battles of M'Clellan axid Meade, or the reverses of Pope, Bumside and Hooker.

The indications to-day are that Grant will try another change of base, and risk another great battle, before resorting to the last extremity of a siege. Mr Staunton's curt despatches lead to the inference that the movement has alresdy commenced, and the guarded letters of the New York and Philadelphia Ijournals name the James Eiver as the ne«r starting point of his mucfienduring; army. It is, perhaps, sufficient criticism upon this movement to say that there are but few military men in the North who do not consider it fraught with much greater danger than any which the army has yet encountered, end no friends of the South who do not fervently hope that nothing will prevent General Grant attempting it.

Reinforcements continue to be forwarded ; but they are chiefly raw recruits and immigrants who hive not been six months in the couutry — men who doubtless do not lack courage, but who have not acquired the habits of discipline or the professional pride of the trained soldier. And, however numerous these reinforcements raav be, it is not probable that they more than half fill up the successive depletions which the Army of the Potomac has suffered during the last five weeks The frightful loss of life in every battle does not account for more thau 20 or 30 per cent, of the 100,000 men who have disappeared from the

effective force of the army since the passage of the Hapidan. To these have to be added the wounded who fell in fair right under the shot and shell of the enemy, the prisoners, the deserters, the three-year Volunteers whose teim haa expired, the tattered and attenuated remnants of wlio=e once complete regiments continue to march through this city. But whether reinforced in whole or in part, General Grant has but little superiority in numbers over General Le" ; while the latter has an immense advantage nob only in position, but in everything that go^s to elevate the morale and increase the heroism of an army.

In anticipation of Itie next battle, news of which is hourly expected, the military hospitals of this city have been cleared of every man fit to bear removal to his home in the north or west, and all preparations made to receive from 5,000 to 10,0 0 nun. Baltimore has not the accommodation for the wounded to be found at Washington, which a gentleman just arrived from that city describes &9 being one huge hospital ; but such accommodation as it has is kept in constant requisition. The hospitals are situated in various pnrts of the totrn, and tax to their utmost the professional resources of the place. 1 visited one of them- a few days ago, immediately after a clearance had been made of the most advanced cases oi convalescence, and saw aa much human suffering in the space of halt an hour as I care to see again in a lifetime. Ten houses - one of them a large hotel, situated on o^e side of Camtfen street, and six, incluiinsr a piano manufactory, directly opposite —have teen hired frera their owners by the Government, connected on°. with the other, and form the chief military hospital of Baltimore. The wards are clean and airy, and e7ery possible adjunct of heiUh and comfort is provided for the wounded. Such as remained on the day of my visit were for the most part fatal coses, or cases of which the surgeons had but faint hop^s. There were men who had lost legs and arms, and men who were awaiting resignedly — and many of them unconsciously — the inevitable amputation that might or that might not save their lives, and who seemed to have lost all interest in the war and the world, arid in everything around them, save perhaps in the friendly care of some sympathizing r.urse, who smoothed their pillows or offered them their drink or their medicine. There were some who had the crowns of their heads carried off by fragments of bursting shells, and yet survived ; some shot through the lungs and certain to die, hu& yet thanking by a look any kind-hearted surgeon who ventured to tell them, against his conviction, that there was yet hope ; others whose jaws had been torn away, some shot in the foot, some in the hand, some through the Bhoulder, and some in the head —the ball in one instance not being merciful enough to take life, but to leave insanity hehind it. The rooms were tastefully adorned with her Federal flag, with vases of flowers, and sometimes with aquariuma, or vVardian cases of ferns, and the walls hung with portraits, among: which that of Jenny Lind was the most conspicuous, and appeared in every room. These gifts were contributed by the nurses, all of whom were Northern and principally New Bnglind ladies, who hid read of Florence Nightingale, aitd, inspired by her example, had devoted their time, their kindness, their care, and their money to the relief of suffering 1 humanity, and the elevation of the common hospital to the comfort and the dignity of a home. Among these ladies was one in deep mourning, whose husband marrtedher two years ago, started from the altar to the battle-field, and returned no more. Another, who paid two visiia daily to the hostal, was not exictly a nurse, but did something of a nurse's duty in her own peculiar way. She was about sixty years of age, scrupulously neat in her attire, was dre-sed n decent black, carried a basket of cakes on her arm, and seemed as if she had been permitted to come into the hospital carry on her humble trade among the soldiers. She stopped at every bed, or at every cbair in which a soldier ,sat up reading, and offered her f-ugal ware, looking hurt if it were not accepted. But the good woman was no merchant. She made the cakes heTsolf every morning, and they we "c her free-will offerings to the men. It was all she could afiord and it was the only way that suggested itself to her mind in which Bao could t>e of se'vice. It was supposed she had lost her husband, or more probably a son, in the recent bittles, but as she said nothing about it Bn<l seemed to shun conversation, no one cared «o invade the secrecy in which she chose to envelope herself. In addition to her cakes, she carried in her basket a collection of newly gathered rose 3 ; and when in her peregrinations through tho warls she came to a bedside of wiiifh the occupant was palpably doomed to rise no more alive, she placed a rose upon his pillow if he slept ; or, if he. were awake, put it into his hand, with a look of motherly commiseration, and pissed on. &ud who Shall deny the wealth of pity in her gentle action, or assert that in her humble ministrations there was no portion of those heavenly characteristics which we ascribe to the aasels 1

Althoaeh the ladies of Baltimore, with this one exception, left to the ladies of a 'mor? Northern and Eastern latitude the duty of attendintr to the wanta and cheering the last hours of the Federal wounded, it must not be supposed that their sympathies were not aa abundant as those of their Northern sisters. The sympathies existed, tut they flowed in Bnother direction. There were no Confederate wounded to he cared for, but there were Confederate prisoners in Port Delaware and other paces in the vicinity who required the kindly attention of those who bo lieve that they suffered in a righteous cause. The military autocrat of Bilttmore-^who rules as stringent ly as Butler before him, though he may see treason and disloyalty in the expression of sympathy with Southern captives, has not yet deemed it expedient to say so, or to prohibit the good Samaritans of bis satrapy from feeding the hungry and clothing the nakeJ, even if the hungry and the naked be the enemies of his Government. The good Hamaritins, therefore, — all of them ladies — having full command of their husbands' purses for this object, if for no other, no sooner hear of the arrival of a detachment of Southern prisoners than they meet to apportion the wants of ths cap ives among them ; and to provide them, each according to her means, with the clothing and other comforts they may require to render captivity less irksome. One lady, three days aao, clothed 100 prisoners at her own expense ; another provided for 50, another for 20, and many more provided for two or three, They were not allowed to deliver their bounty personally, but were permitted to receive the epistolary thanks of the recipients. The letters of the prisoners are in every style of composition, from the ungraramaticai to the cor-

rect, from the business-like to the romantic, but all convey the same manly gratitude and the same unwavering confidence in the final triumph of the caube for which they have suffered so much and are ready to suffer to the end.