ENGLISH COMMERCIAL.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1810, 30 December 1862, Page 3

ENGLISH COMMERCIAL.

Tobacco Shipments somewhat receded, owing to last month's exports and advancing rates. , Spirits on an average; wines to Sydney inI creased ; beer in bulk and glass freely shipped j to Melbourne. Malt and hops on the increase ; also provisions and groceries, i Butter and candles declined. „ Oils — List sales of colonial double compass £43 10s ; single £42 10s. Sperm oil is cheaper. Bark — Scarcely any. Mimosa on offer. Sale i chopped at £15 ss ; ground at £H 12s 6d. Whalebone, in more demand at an advance

The above, was published on Saturday from this office in the shape of an Extraordinary. We take the following fuller intelligence from the Home Neivs : — AMERICA. THE STRUGGLE IN MARYLAND. The campaign in Maryland, the progress of which was being watched with so much anxiety at the date of our last publication, was brought to a a close more suddenly than had been expected. Before a week elapsed after that date, we received the newa that the Confederate army had withdrawn, or retreated, into its own territory of Virginia, and that the military positions of the opposing forces had returned to nearly what they ware in the last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 bo utterly defeated by the Confederates that he was compelled to take refuge within the entrenchments around Washington. So complete seemed the destruction of the Federal army to General 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 State, shows that they probably entertained more seiious 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 the progress of 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 Wash ing ton 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 ho succeeded in taking into the field. Before or soon after, M'CleUan left Washington, the Confederate troops under Lee, a 9 our readers will recollect, had crossed into Maryland. They occupied Frederick City, which is some 60 miles north-west of Washington and 10 miles north of the Potomac, which comes down from the northwest towards the capital. Having done this, they advanced from Frederick City up to Hagerstown, a distance of twenty-five miles, and threatened to enter Pendsylvania. 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 the Kitoctan Mountain. This last ridge is pierced by two roads ; the more northerly passes through Turner's Gap, and is the main turnpike road to i Boonesboro and Hagerstown ; the more southerly, distant from the former about five miles, passes through Cramp ton's gap, and then turning northward joins the road to Boonesboro and Hagerstown. Such being the field operations, the events which I took place from the 12th September, when M'tHellan reached Frederick City, are readily intelligible. Having left Frederick City in his progress westward, he crossed the Kictoatan 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 15th 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 prasent at Turner's Gap. We hear of Longstreet coming back from Hagerstown. and it is known that • Stonewall ' Jackson had been engaged in taking Harper's Ferry on Monday, the 15th September. The ..truth probably is that General Lee thought it imi possible 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 Isth. 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 J7th. By that time "Stonewall" Jackson, having liberated the prisoners whom he took at Harper'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 been very obstinate. It continued from dawn till dusk, and as General M'Clellan estimates the loss on his own Bide to have been from 6,000 to 10,000 men, the battle must have raged fieioely the whole day. Darkness, we may assume, put an end to the struggle, as the two armies remained nearly on !the same ground they occupied. The field was the rolling ground northward and south of Antietatn 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 left flank. The other point of assault was to be a stone bridge, by which Burnside 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. This 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 fire opened from them, and drove the Northern forces 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 coves 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 one o'clock in the day, and -again retaken by the Maine and Vermont men at a latei period, not to be afterwards surrendered. By thif time Burnsido was making his advance, after b continued cannonade on the Federal left, and had won the stone bridge under a desperate fire. Tlw delay that ensued here led probably to Hooker'i difficulty on the right; for, while Burnside hac not crossed, Lee could spare forces against him Burnside was not over the creek till 3 p.m., anc once beyond it M'Clellan sent him word to ad vance and take the batteries in front of him at anj coat. Along four miles of battle ground at thi; time heavy artillery was in constant dischargi under the hot afternoon sun. Burnside took th< nearest battery, and the (Confederates withdrev the farthest of the two opposed to him, thu yielding an important point on their right. Bu this point was immediately assailed again, fron fresh positions by the Southerners, who masse* in force, and pressed Burnside with the rifle am bayonet. Such a moment was undoubtedly a: anxious one for M'Clellan, who had, however, stil 15,000 men in reserve under Porter. The cor respondent whose account we follow, thus describe the crisis as an .eye witness. "'Burnside's mes senger rides up. His message is, * I want troop and guns. If you do not send them I canno hold my position for half an hour.' M'Clellan only answer for the moment is a glance at th western sky. Then he turns and speaks vei slowly. • Tell General Burnside that this is th battle of war. He must hold his ground till dar at any cost. I will send him Miller's battery, can do nothing more. I have no infantry.' Thei as the messenger was riding away, he called hii back. < Tell him if he cannot hold his groun then the bridge, to the last man I always th bridge ! If the bridge is lost, all is lost.' " Assis anee seems to have been sent to Burnside ; ai with the retirement of the Confederates the batt was. put an end to by nightfall. The right hi been therefore held, and the bridge and the a< vance beyond made good ; but no more imm diato success could be claimed for this hwdfougl

day. Both sides had contested it with desperate, valor; and both discontinued it with enormous' losses. On the 18th September, little occurred beyond skirmishing, at least on the Federal side. It appears that the day was employed by the Con • federates 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 despatoh written on the morning of the 18 th, "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 be 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 j Maryland and Pennsylvania" are now safe." It will be seen that all the engagements by which Maryland was recovered fromthe 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 aounty of Frederick and a corner of its northwestern neighbor, which, to add to the confusion of American topography, bears the same name as the Frederick capital, Washington. The road from Frederick City to Hagerstown and the Potomac, running with many curves, but iv its general direction parallel to the road, are the limits of the part of Maryland into which the Southern army advanced. It is a strip, about 34 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 j crossed at several points. The battle of the 17th. j was fought near Sharpsburg, and it was by the bridge at Shepherds-town and the fords above and below it that the Confederates recrosaed the Potomac into Virginia. The distance of these points from Sharpsburg io only four miles. The army, it is stated, began to pass the river early on the night of the 1 8th. 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, aa it waa only " during the night " that M'Clellan " 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 Mnnsfied was killed, and no loss than 13 officers of the same rank were returned by name as wounded. A special correspodent of the Times, who writes from Baltimore, refers to the terrible scene presented on the 18th September- by the field of battle: — Seldom, Bince 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 fire square miles &t 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 seeing the hospitals at Washington and taking stock of some 20,000 sufferers in that devoted city— after recognising the many shortcomings and deficiences of th 9 provision for the sick in every hospital I have seen, the thought that at least 12,000 additional FederaVsufferera, and many hundreds of Confederate wounded thrown into Federal hands, are added to the bloody record of Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, might well freezo the heart with hoFror and dismay. I-.will not pauae to oallattention 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 Bull Run. 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 building within twenty miles of the battle field, should not endeavour to put some stop to an effusion of blood which has never been parallelled in times known to history. 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 to do 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 te 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 such scenes as would be heart-rend-ing even if they related 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 number of details which modify in some respects the history of the Maryland campaign as narrated from Federal sources. The Times refers in a recent leader td these supplementary details •.— The invasion of Maryland, and the story of the military successes which rendered it possible, can now for the first time be collated from the accounts of both parties. In a private letter from an officer in " Stonewall " Jackson's corps, which we extract to-day from a Southern paper, the story is very vividly and circumstantially told, and is brought down to the 6th September, when the Southern forces were in possession of Frederioksburg. The reader cannot but follow with interest the rapid and perilous advance of Jackson and his ragged, shoeless followers, marching five and twenty miles a day, burning railway cars, breaking down bridges, heard of from time to time by poor puzzled General Pope, and thought by him to be a cavalry party which a brigade of infantry might easily surround ; then scattering this brigade and falling ravenously upon the spoil which it had brought in its train. Two hundred cartloads of boots and coats, toothbrushes, candles, coffee, and lobster salad — and amid all their valuable acquisitions they remember the last luxury with especial relish— rewarded the audacity of these hungry, half-clad warriors. Necessity is the mother of audacity as well of invention. It waa probably much less by the speeches of the prating fools in the Southern House of Reprentatives than it was by the naked feet of hia men, that Lee was induced to cross the Potomac. The • Stonewalls ' hadjbeen living on roasted corn, They had no waggons ; starving and footsore, but victorious, they were 18,000 men standing between the great armies of Pope and MtSiellanj burning and destroying what they could not carry away, and feasting as mea feast when they know they are in all probability , upon the eve of anothei long fast. "To see a starving man," naively re marks this Confederate officer, " eating lobstei salad and drinking Rhine wine, barefoot and ii tatters, was ourious." Curious, perhaps, but no very wonderful ; for it is consistent with raanj precedents that the luxurious impedimenta o great me^enary armies should become the proj of a hardy enemy who had learned to do withou them. We muat admire, also, in this, narrativi the discipline which could carry away an armi from such a booty in light fighting condition, an< the tactics which won that second battle of Bui Run, first heard of in England as a Federal vie tory ; When we read by the double light qf th tyrol accounts, it now appears certain tha it was a fight won by the Confederatt >» generals entirely by superior strategy .against cod id siderable odds ; the men on both sides fightin d- with equal valor and discipline, and night pre c- serving the Federals from a total rout. We mm at j probably wait a short time before vr^fcav© a iss

lar opportunity of comparing tho\; Northern and Southern, versions of thei Maryland ■: •. battles. What Southern accounts wb have;' seem to intimate that the strategy of General Lee was not directed to the carrying out of the policy sought to be imposed upon him by- the . Congress at Richmond. He was hardly impelled by the wild design of ravaging Pennsylvania, and making the North th« seat of war. We are told by the correspondent of the Southern papers that, while 'seemingly moving his troops in the direction of Pennsylvania, he was really preparing an important movement into Virginia." As this statement was made previously to the last great battle, it may, perhaps, be true that the Confederate generals have accomplished on the other side of the Potomac all they ever hoped to do there. When we read of the privations endured by the Confederate troops, we can*\vell understand that to re-victual, re-clothe, and re-arm such a force in the enemy's country, and in a great measure at the enemy's expense, is in itself a most important military success. Moreover, the capture of the force and post at Harper's Ferry would hardly have been accomplished by a less aggressive style of tactics. The Confederates claim that by this great coup they paroled 11,000 privates and 425 officers ; took 2000 negroes, obtained 15,000 stand of small arms, 40 pieces of cannon, 500 horses, and many military stores, of which they were greatly in need. If, as the Southern accounts seem to imply, the invasion of the North was intended only for the accomplishment of these objects, and if • General Lee had all along determined as his ultimate object, to retire when he had drawn the Federal army from Washington, and to attempt . to lure M'Clellan once more across the Potomac in pursuit of him,, then the Confederates' plan has thus far succeeded, and General Lee and his coadjutors are not open to the criticism which a deliberate pro- ' ject of carrying the war into Pennsylvania must hava brought down upon. them. The battle at Harper's Ferry above referred to, commenced on the 12th, by^ an attack on the Federals on Maryland Heights. The Federals sent xeinforcements from Harper's Ferry to Maryland Heights, and the engagement continued during the 12th and 13th. The Federals evacuated Maryland Heights for the Ferry, previously spiking the guns on Maryland Heights. OnJ|the 14th the Confederates assembled on Lintbn Heights, and openecPtheir batteries from that point, and also from* Maryland Heights. Skirmishing continued during the 14th. During the night of the 10th, the Confederates planted additional batteries on London Heights, and another battery on the opposite side of the Potomac to the right of the Federal position, thus enfilading the whole of the Federal entrenchments, The Confederates opened fire from these batteries on tho morning of the 16th, when a Federal council of war was held, and a white flag displayed, During the hoisting the white flag a shell struck Colonel Miles, who commanded at Harper's Ferry, wounding him mortally. The Federals surrendered to General Jackson on the following terms :— Officers and men to have ready parole. Officers to retain their side arms and private property, All United States property to be turned over to the Confederates. The Confederates paroled about 8000 prisoners ; and the • New York Tribune * correspondent says they captured 10,000 stand of arms, 40 cannon, and. cartridges and stores. Fifteen hundred Federal cavalry succeeded in escaping previously from Harper's Ferry, and captured en route Confederate General Longstreet's baggage train. On their retreat back into Virginia from Maryland, the Confederates evacuated Harper's Ferry, having first destroyed the Government stores and a portion of the railway bridge. For about three weeks after the, battle of Antietarn C reek, the Northern and Southern armies,.con&Qaed quietly to occupy the oppoiaite bank^^fethe Totomac within but a short distance of eaiii||rher. The last mail, however, brings > intellig^pa another invasion of the North by the^ijomederates. It appears that General Stuart, with a small force of 3,000 men, crossed the Potomac at Hancock, a place about 30 miles west of Hagerstown. At this point the strangely-shaped State of Maryland is at its narrowest, the frontier of Virginia being only some six or eight miles from that of Pennsylvania. General Stuart pushed across the Maryland territory, entered Pennsylvania, marched to Chambersburg in all a distance of -some 40 miles. Chambersburg surrendered, the Confederates destroyed the railway station, and captured 800 horses. The latest news received of them was that they were marching on Gettysburg, a place to the eastward, with the design of destroying the bridge and preventing the* approach of General M'Clellan. Whether this march of General Stuart be a mere raid or a feint, or is undertaken with the settled design of carrying the war into the North, it is impossible to say. It is probable, however, that no regular invasion of Pennsylvania on a large scale is intended. The Confederates probably desire either to interrupt the communications between Washington and the West, or to force General • M'Clellan into some movement from which they hope to gain an advantage. But the incident is in itself so strange,-and shows such boldness on the part of the Confederates, that we can well imagine that the news was received with the greatest astonishment in New York. The Richmond Whig has information that the entire Confederate loss in all the engagements which have recently occurred in Maryland is from 5000 to 7000. FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. Mr Chase has just published an official state ment of the expenditure of the Federal Government for the three months ending on the 30th June last. It is nearly £39,000,000 or at the rate of 160,000,000 a year. The total receipts for the same quarter are above £47,000,000, But more than haif of this sum is obtained by reckoning -tho paper issues of the Government as revenue, The legal tender notes and the certificates of indebtedness of the Treasury make up more than £8,000,000 of what is put down as income. In | reality it is future debt), to meet which nothing has yet been raised by direct taxation. PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION. Even in this crisis of the war, the most important part of the intelligence of the past month refers to a political, . not a military movement. President Lincoln has issued a proclamation thai in all States which shall not have leturned to the Union on Jan. 1, 1863, the slaves shall after that * date be free. This proclamation, which is dated Sept. 22, runs as follows : — " I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclafmand declare, that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relations between the United States and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed , that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering peouniary aid to the free acceptance or rejeotion of all the Slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, the . immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery with* in their respective limits ; and that the efforts to colonise persons of African descent, with their con* sent upon the continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued ; that on the Ist day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persona held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof* shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and for ever free; and the Executive Government of the United States including, the military and naval a.uthoritieß thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do. no .act or.aeto to>rer v press such persons, or any of them in any efforts they may make for their actual ireddom ; that the v executive will on the Ist day of January aforesaid; \ by proclamation, designate the States and parts, of States, if any, in which the people thereof^>iespeotively shall then be in rebellion against > the : M. United States ; and the fact that any State.or the : people thereof, shaUbjithatday be ih good, faith, represented in the CJongress of >t^e Untted^^^ ; by members chosen thereto at. '^%qp|^rjp^p|pl majority of the qualified votei^#su'oh-B^tovahitt ; a have p^twhMted;shallj&i