THETIMES ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1787, 4 November 1862, Page 4

THE TIMES ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

The Times of August 22, thus reviews, in a leading article, the position of affairs in America : — •'ln the long list of American telegrams which have just been received there is but a single item of intelligence favorable to the Fedenls. The new iron ram Arkansas— the Merrunac of the Mississippi — is said to have been blown up, but, as the siege of Vicksburgb, for the relief of which she was designed, has been finally abandoned, the Confederates can well afford the loss. For the rest, the lepoit tell-* of nothing tut gloom anc 1 onfusion, increasing difficulties and impending dissolution. The small conquest effected by the Federals in in the spring are apparently slipping out of their hands. General Butler himself is in danger at New Orleans. The garrison at Hilton Head is expecting an attack. The very fleet of the Northerners below Savannah is on the alert for sin ilar apprehensions. But these are small niattets compared with the threatened disorganisation in the States themselves. Kentucky already, perhaps, more than half Confederate in feeling, is in imminent risk of a Confederate invasion, and Ohio itself is hardly renuied safe. What \i worse than all, the Noitb West has shown sytnptoni3of disaffection, and proceedings are reported from Indiana which amount to nothing less than resolutions of secession on the part of those engaged. When the Californians, again, hear that their fellow citizens have been arres'.ed <»n ships' decks lest they should escape the conscription, they are not likely to look with much favor on a Union which renders them mere fo<>d for powder. All this while the desperate government of Washington is pressing soldiers into its armies with unscrupulous iigor. The very approach of the conscription has driven tiousi-nds into flight, and it seems as if Mr. Stanton would have to capture his recruits by police officers and carry them off at the point of the bayonet. The war, too, is assuming meanwhile a character of shucking ferocity, an<l the ominous cry of* repiisals" has been officially sounded. On all sides the. political horizon grows hlacker and blacker, nor can any chance of peace be diseoveied, except in the exhaustion or i npotence of a belligerent. "If the Federals were not blind with fury, they would now see what all Europe has seen from the beginning. Looking at the contest from a distance, we cannot so much as imagine on what calculations the President's govern* ment can now expect to accomplish its objects, or on wbat grounds they Cdv justify their proseciiiou of the war. Twelve months ago they commenced, not in haste, but with great deliberation, aud after a rude an<l costly lesson, th<jir preparations for the realities of the struggle brfore them. What this struggle implied they first learnt from their defeat at B ill's Run. That reverse taught them that the suppression of the ' rebellion " was not the work of a week or two for an army of ignorant volunteers. They saw then what the war would require, and "they made no secret of their convictions. They acknowledged openly that the subjection of th° South would demand the organisation of powerful forces, and these forces they proceeded to raise and discipline. They called for hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and in those days the soldiers came. President Lincoln got every man and gun that he asked for, and these immense levies were placed under the coinicaud of a popular and promising general to train at his leisure. How linle M Glellau was hurried in his operations we need not say. Nobody can have forgotten the mouths that he spent, probably with great prudence, on the drill and discipline which might impart to his new levies the qualities of an army. The best pait of a year passed before he could be indued to leave his parade ground, and begin the work on which he was set. At last he did move, and what »c beg our readers to remember is the army with which he then advanced was the real grand army of the North. It is curious indeed, lo reflect bow very little we know of those forces which fought the battles of the Wfst. We first heard of desultory combats in Kentucky and Tennessee, then of more extensive operations on the Missouri border, and finally of two large armies manoeuvring against esch other on the Mississippi. But the Frdera' aimy which was so severely handled at Corinth never seemed to draw for either men or munitions on the immediate resources of the Federal government. The troops weie raised in the North-Western States, and supplied from that part of the country in apparent independence of Washington. All the efforts of the government, of the New England States, of the Atlantic cities, anil, in a word, of America piopet, were concentrated on M'Clellan's aim-, and on the navy by which it o was to be supp'-ried. It was on the perfection ot thi« great machine that the President and his secretaries were incessantly at work. For this, Mr. Chase manufactured his paper money, ami Mr. Sutiton, his bulletins. For this, the go-ven-ment turned out battery after battery, till the army of the Potomac was believed to be irreMstible in artiJlery alone. The force led by M'Clellan into Virginia represented what the No«h could really accomplish after a year's preparation and with unexhausted resources; nor«its the result discreditable. After allowing for nl< l!>e expeuditure on minor expeditions, we cannot doubt that M'Clellen had with him fn>m h"rst to last upwards of 150,000 troops, all, v .tier Hie circumstances, well organised and «i) S cipi'ied. admirably equipped, and excellently suppie'l. Now, what has been the f.ite of this ret.rr*et;tiiti\e army? It has failed more com pletely than any other Federal force in the fieid, gteat or small. It has literally done nothing. Though the scene of its operations nas cose at home, and it was never exhausted hy laborious marches, it has not won a single batik-, and, after struggling with difficulty up to the walls of Richmond, it was sudfleuly beaten back with dreadful loss. " This being the case, can it, let us ask, be reasonably anticipated that a second venture on the s.iuie terms will be more successful than the tir-t? We will assume, for arguments sake, that the President obtains 600,000 new levies for he is now calling. This, however, will only put him in the position from which he started 12 months ago, when he had 700,000, and of a f.ir better quality. He may begin anew to organise levies, to turn recruits into soldiers, to cast fresh cannon, and, in a word, to equip and establish a new aimy of the Potomac. He imy even gain a litll« advantage, and, if M'Clellan can succeed iv maintaining his present position, he may start from th.it point, instead of from Washington, on the conquest of Virginia. But, coi sidering what th** quality of the troops must be, and the impressions likdv to be left on both sides by the experience of the past year, is it | probable that the new army will do any better than the old? The North has thnwn its whole strength into a blow, which has failed. It cxn repeat the blow, doubtless, but only with less force and less cliance of effect. tk It is useless to argue that M'Clellan may be irresilibiy reintorced. It is anything but clear that he can preserve his position or save his army from destruction. If he should be so far succtfMifiil, he can receive his share of the sue* 'Cours which the draughts may provide. There art others as clamourous for assistance as he, and, besides New Orleans and the other coast gairisons, it is evident that seme of the inland JSta.es will require large armies to keep them from secession. The army of Virginia has airways 1 ad the lion's share of supplies, and the result, it was said in Congress, was a force of t.158,000 men. Of these it is not pretended that above 70,000 or 80,000 remained effective after the battles on the Chickahominy, and on that remnant two months of heat and malaria have

since done their fatal work. Will the pressed men, the refractory conscrips, and the reclaimed deserters nc»\v be despatched to M'Clellan's aid give him a better army fiaii before? and, if not, will a worse army succeed where a belter one has faiied? Those are questions which nobody will have any difficu'ty in answering on this side of the Atlantic, but the truth, it seems, has yet to dawn, if not on the people, at any rate on the government of the Federal Siate3.

An article in the Times of August 261h, summarises the recent news from Ameiici. It concludes with the following passage: — ''All over the Western Stiles t!ie war is sporadic, and assuming on both sides an as- ect of greater atrocity ; the savage Indian tribes have been arrayed on both sides, and Choctows and Cherokees and guerilla ba»ds are stepping in on the bloody stage, which is hi older t!«:»n all Europe. Guerillas ' wiped out' in one place, rise up and take a turn in another. A sick Federal general is murdered in his Ambulance, the Federals l.«y wiste the district, hang the people in the neighbourhood, and burn the hntt<es. Tennessee is swarming now with patriots on both sides, and the poor people are plundered as they were in the days of the old war. A Confederate general is assassinated by a Tennessee Unionist. Missouri seems bunded over to marauders on both sides The reporf of the capture of Baton H-nige is renewed, and there is no confirmation of the destruction of the Arkansas. It is impossible t'» make anything out of the accounts of these lights, exC p pt that Morgan or Q jantrell, or Porter's bands are killing people or t iking or leaving place. 0 , or are bein« kilie.! by other Americans — 50 here, and 150 there, all over vast tracts » f country, that railway trains are fired int ■•, bridges cut or burnt; mails stopped; that blood is Sowing like water, and that Union feeling is not to be found in the South under the keenest search of the bayonet. Sickness is nearly universal. General Butler is uneasy about his position in New Orleans, his spies prove untrustworthy, commerce does not revive, nor can it at at ail cheer him to hear the * rams ' preparing at Mobile. The insecurity of the garrison at Hilton Head is admitted, and Puluski is looking out with all its eyes for the new rams fitted up at Savannah. These statements are contained in the American papers by Americans of Americans. Because they are sifted and reproduced here, the " New York World" piously hopes they may ' be even witti our English cousins some dny.' And for what it would be hard to say, indeed, except that this holding ot the mirror up to the Federal face causes disagreeable reflections. The recruiting which is going on actively is admitted to be caused by the desire to get the bounty, which would not be paid if the men waited till they were drafted, and the vanity and conceit of the people is nursed to a degree bordering on insanity by their pipers, which talk of the march of a million of soldiers with their glisteuing bayonets and well-trained cannon.' "