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Rev. P. N. Lynch, Bishop of Charleston, column into Maryland. Kentucky will, S. C., and Archbishop Hughes of New ere long, be drawn into the struggle, York, brings before us with some dis- and the United States will, in less than tinctness the relative condition, hopes ten months, be divided into two not and prospects of the two portions of the unequal parts, marshaling hundreds of country. The letter of Bishop Lynch thousands of men against each other." was dated Charleston, August 4, 1861, Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky were and in some roundabout way passed the indeed to be the scene of the rivalry of blockade in season to elicit a reply from the contending parties during the period the Archbishop, dated the 23d of the indicated, but with a result more favormonth, which, in the absence of post- able to the Union cause than the writer office communication, was printed in the probably expected. Catholic newspaper, the Metropolitan Record. As both letters were doubtless written with an eye to the public, the end was thus directly gained in spite of the regulations restricting all intercourse between the North and the South. Passing over the oft-repeated discussion of the origin of the war, already variously presented in these pages, we find the following passages of an historical interest bearing directly upon the present state of the struggle, more than six months after the first decided steps taken in the secession movement at Charleston: "What a change," writes Bishop Lynch to his friend, "has come over these States since I wrote to you a long letter last November, and even since I had the pleasure of seeing you last March. All that I anticipated in that letter has come to pass, and more than I looked for. All the hopes cherished last spring, of a peaceable solution, have vanished before the dread realities of war. What is still before us? Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky are nearer secession now than Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee were four months ago. Missouri is a battlefield. I think that President Davis, after the victory at Stonebridge, will probably, as his next move, throw a

The following speculations on the conduct and duration of the war which Sumter had inaugurated, and for which the recent contest at Bull Run had opened an indefinite future, are of interest, expressing as they do the opinions of this period of an intelligent and well informed observer, in a position of such high influence and authority at the South. "The war," writes Bishop Lynch, "was unnecessary in the beginning. It brings ruin to thousands in its prosecution. It will be fruitless of any good. At its conclusion the parties will stand apart exhausted and embittered by it; for every battle, however won or lost, will have served but to widen the chasm between the North and South, and to render more difficult, if not impossible, any future reconstruction. Will it be a long war, or a short and mighty one? The Cabinet and the Northern press has pronounced for the last. Yet this is little more than an idle dream. What could 400,000 men do? I do not think there is a general on either side able to fight 50,000 men. And the North would need eight or ten such generals. Certainly the 40,000 under McDowell, after five hour's fighting, fought on mechanically without any generalship. The higher officers had completely lost the guiding

SPECULATIONS OF BISHOP LYNCH ON THE WAR.

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It

would not be successful, and even if successful-it would never subjugate it."

reins. On our side the Southern troops be established by any such course. ought to have been in Washington within forty-eight hours. But the 40,000 on the Confederate side were, I appre- Thus much for the active prosecution hend, too unwieldy a body for our gen- of the war. Looking at it on the other erals. Did not Bonaparte say, that'not hand as a controversy to be finally deone of his marshals could general 50,000 termined in the slow exhaustion of the men in battle? Soult could bring them resources of the combatants, he found the to the field, and place them properly, North and the South thus relatively sitbut could go no further.' But without uated, "That portion of the former generals, what could 400,000 men do United States will suffer most in such a against the South? By force of num- contest, and must finally succumb, which bers, and at great loss, they might take is least able to dispense with the support city after city. But unless they left it received from the other two sections. large permanent garrisons, their author- How the North can do without our ity would die out with the sound of their Southern trade I presume it can judge drums. Such an army marching through after three or four months' trial. But it a country covered with forests and thick- would seem that the failure to sell to the ets, and occupied by a population hostile South one hundred and twenty millions to a man, and where even school-boys of their manufactures each year, the can 'bark a squirrel,' would be decimated stoppage of so much of their shipping every hundred miles of its progress by a interest as was engaged in the two hunguerrilla warfare, against which it could dred and twenty millions of our foreign find no protection. This mode of attack- exports, and the return importations, ing the South can affect nothing beyond and in our internal coasting trade, tothe loss of life it will entail, and the tem- gether with the loss of the profits and porary devastation that will mark the commissions on so vast a business, must track of the armies. One other have a very serious effect, one that I see warlike course remains to capture and no way of escaping. Truly, the North hold all the Southern ports, and thus has to pay dearly for its whistle of seek to control commerce independent Black Republicanism. The North-west of secession, leaving the interior of the depended partially on the South for a South to fret and fume as it pleases. market for its productions, and so far This is the problem of belling the cat. will suffer from the loss of it. It must The Northern forces would have to cap- also be incidentally affected by comture Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Wil-mercial embarrassments at the North. mington, N. C., Pensacola, Mobile, New They will assuredly have enough to eat Orleans and Galveston, besides some and to wear, but the 'fancy' prices of fifteen other similar points. At each of real estate and stocks, by which they them they would find a stone bridge; computed their rapidly increasing wealth, and even if they should succeed, they must fall in a way to astonish Wall could only hold military possession, and Street. Should their own crops fail, as be ever in arms against the attacks of they sometimes do, or should the Eurothe State authorities. Peace could never pean crops be abundant, their commerce

must fall. Yet, as the mass of the poor will have all that they ever get anywhere-food and raiment, and that without stint the North-west will suffer comparatively little. How will it fare with the South should the war be long and so powerfully waged as to require the Southern Confederation to keep say 100,000 men in arms, and if her ports are strictly blockaded? This is an important question, and one that can be answered only from a practical knowledge of the habits, resources, and dispositions of the Southern people. Our needs will be provisions, clothing, money for the governmental and war expenses, and for the purchase from abroad of what we absolutely require, and are not already supplied with. As for provisions, I am satisfied that this season we are gathering enough for two years' abundant supply. Every one is raising corn, wheat and stock. On this point the South need not envy the North-west. Again, manufactures of every kind are springing up on all sides. In this State we are providing for our wants-from lucifer matches and steam engines to powder and rifled cannon. Clothing, too, though of a ruder texture, and sometimes inferior quality, is abundantly made, and easily procured. The supply of tea and coffee will, I presume, in time run out. This will put us to some trouble, but otherwise, neither for provisions nor for clothes, will the South be seriously inconvenienced. The blacks (by-the-by, more quiet and orderly now, if possible, than before), will remain devoted to agriculture, while the rapidly increasing demand for home productions of every kind gives ready employment to the poorer clssses of the whites. What amount of gold and silver there

is within the Confederate States I can only guess at-I suppose about 25,000,000. But as the greater part of our expenses is at home, any currency we are satisfied to use will do-whether bank bills, Confederate bonds, or treasury notes. When we go abroad it must be with gold or with cotton. This last is the spinal column of our financial system. The following is the proposed mode of operating with it: two millions, or two-and-a-half, of bales will be conveyed to the Confederate government, to be paid for in bonds or treasury notes. This cotton will be worth, at ordinary prices, $100,000,000. If it can be exported at once, it is so much gold. If it is retained, it will form the security for any loan that may be required abroad. The other third of the cotton will be sold by the planters as best they can on their own account. The chief difficulty is the blockade, which may prevent the export and sale abroad of the cotton.

A loan on it as security,

while it is still unshipped, and scattered in the interior in numberless small warehouses, could not easily be effected.

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Up to the present time, and for six months more, the blockade, so far from doing any serious injury, has, on the contrary, benefited, and will continue to benefit, the South, forcing us to be active, and to do for ourselves much that we preferred formerly to pay others to do for us. I presume that next January, with a crop of 3,500,000 or 4,000,000 bales in hand, the South would become very restive under a strict blockade. Should it continue twelve months longer, property at the South would go down, as they say it has in New York. But before that time comes, another very serious complication arises-how Eng

REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.

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land and France will stand the cutting think it would be undesirable and inoff of the supply of an article on which jurious both to the North and to the depend two-thirds of the manufacturing South. Unless I have been deceived by interests of the one, and one-third of statements considered reliable, I would those of the other? They cannot, try say that the mind of the North looks they never so much, supply the de- only to the purpose of bringing back the ficiency. As far as the feelings of Eng- seceded States to their organic condition land are concerned, and I presume, those ante bellum.” of France, too, both nations are decidedly and bitterly anti-slavery; but neither will be guilty of the mistake of the North, and utterly sacrifice vast interests for the sake of a speculative idea. If they find they cannot do without Southern cotton, they will interfere, first probably to make peace, and if that effort fails, then in such other manner as will secure for them what will be a necessity. Mr. Seward's letter to Dayton, and its reception in Europe, the transportation of troops to Canada, and Admiral Milne's declaration as to the inefficiency of the blockade, are straws already showing the probable course of future events. Is the Federal Government strong enough for a war with England and France, in addition to that with the South ?"

Archbishop Hughes, in his reply, defended with spirit the attitude of the North, treating the war as a sad necessity for the preservation of the Government and the State, and the avoidance of the intolerable evils of anarchy and perpetual hostilities. Some points in his remarks are worth noting. Of the object of the war, he said, "There appears to be an idea in the South that the Federal Government and the people of the North are determined to conquer and subjugate them. This, I think, is a great mistake. First, in the stern sense of the word 'conquer,' it seems to be utterly impossible; and, if possible, I

As Christian Bishops, the thoughts of these writers were turned to the prospects of peace, which both desired; but which neither had, for some time to come, much ground to hope for. The remarks of Archbishop Hughes on this subject, proposing a possible plan of adjustment, sufficiently demonstrate the perplexities of the question. "That word 'peace,'" said he, "is becoming more or less familiar here in the North. In a crisis like this it is not, in my opinion, expressive of a sound principle or a safe policy. Its meaning changes the basis and the issue of this melancholy war. If changed, it will be a war, not between the South and the North, geographically considered, but a war between the two great political parties that divide the country. Instead of this partisan hostility, wise patriots should rival each other in restoring or preserving the Union as one nation, its prosperity, and the protection of happiness of its entire people, in all their legitimate rights. But all this is to be judged of by others, and the opinion of any individual is of the smallest account. If a word of mine could have the slightest influence, I would suggest that even while the war is going on, there might be a convention of the seceded States held within their own borders. It might be one representative appointed from each of those States, by the governor, to meet and examine the whole case as it

now stands arrange and draw up a 33,000,000, wise and patriotic men report of their grievances, or what they might suggest, according to the rules consider such-and report to their res- prescribed in the original document, the pective Governors the result of their de- improvements which the actual condition liberations, and the conclusions at which of the country would seem to require. they have arrived. The same process The Constitution itself, in its letter and might be adopted in the States that have spirit, is no doubt the same as it was not seceded, and similar reports made when first framed ; but everything around to their respective Governors. This us has been undergoing a change for would be only a preparatory measure for the last eighty years. For a peace of something more important. If a better that kind I would be a very sincere, if feeling or understanding could be even not an influential advocate. But to expartially arrived at, a future convention pect that a peace will spring up by the of all the States, by their representatives, advocacy of individuals in the midst of would have something to act upon. The the din and clash of arms, amid the mudifficulties might be investigated and pro- tually alienated feelings of the people, vided for; the Constitution might be re- and the widening of the breach which vised by general consent, and if the plat- has now separated them, would be, in form-sufficiently ample for 3,000,000 my opinion, hoping against hope. Still at the period when the Constitution was we must trust that the Almighty will formed is found to be neither of breadth overrule and direct the final issues of nor strength to support a population of this lamentable contest."

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THE privateer, or ship of war, as she end of October, 1846, and was actively claimed herself to be, of the greatest re- engaged in an efficient prosecution of the pute in the service of the Confederates blockade till the sudden destruction of at this period, was undoubtedly the his vessel on the 8th of the ensuing DeSumter, sailing under the command of cember. While in pursuit of a vessel Captain Raphael Semmes. This officer apparently endeavoring to run the blockhad been of some note in the United ade, the Somers was struck by a heavy States Navy. A native of the State of norther, and being lightly ballasted, was Maryland, he had entered the service in thrown on her beam-ends, and in ten 1826, and since that time had been em- minutes sunk in the waves. In this brief ployed in eleven years of active service interval Lieutenant Semmes acted with at sea, and about ten years' duty on praiseworthy seamanship and heroism. shore. He had borne a part of consid- After doing all that could be done to save erable distinction in the naval operations the vessel, he gave orders to preserve as on the coast of Mexico in the war with many of the crew as possible, launching that nation in 1846-7, as Flag-Lieuten- a boat with success, and placing on board ant of the squadron, and Lieutenant- of her several officers and seventeen men, Commanding the ill-fated United States who were unable to swim, with directions brig Somers. He succeeded Commander to make for the neighboring Verde IsIngraham in charge of this vessel at the land and return for others. He himself

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