other regiments, may be known by their strong frames, gay manners, and devil-may-care air. The South Carolinians, sallow in complexion, tall in stature, seldom need the Palmetto to tell the stranger the State from which they come; but in all regiments it is easy to perceive differences in manner and bearing, indicative of the various classes of which the army is composed. Numbers of wealthy planters serve as privates side by side with the professional man, the shopkeeper, the clerk, the labourer; and all go through the ordinary fatigue duties incident to camp We saw a poor negro servant actually shedding tears because his master, on being told off to dig a trench round a battery, would not allow him "to lend a hand." 66 them are much less. Altogether The personnel of the army is very varied. For instance, in the Louisiana regiments are seen the bronzed and fiery-eyed French creoles mingled with many Irish and native Americans from New Orleans. The Alabamans, proud of their gallant 4th, their flying artillery, and "Twill nebber do, massa," he said; "I go 'tarnal mad wid dem darn'd Yankees." One day we heard a lad boasting to one of a different regiment of the number of gentlemen in his company who had thousands of dollars at their command. The latter replied, "Oh, of course they fight; but we have some in ours who have not got a cent!" The Washington artillery, comprising many batteries, is composed of the best blood in New Orleans. The gunners, dressed in light-blue uniforms, are all men of independent means. General Beauregard's son, for instance, left his father's staff, and entered as a private. The drivers are regularly enlisted into the army, and paid by the regi ment; so here is a force which does not cost the country a single farthing. Their efficiency is undoubted, and the execution which they did at Bull's Run has led to their material augmentation, and the formation of others on similar principles. From the same city comes a very different regiment, called the New Orleans "Zouaves," dressed in red caps, blue braided jackets, and trousers striped with Apparently at least; for as they marched past the General with a long swinging step, singing a wild martial air, we thought they were as formidable a body of men as we should care to see. The drill of the army is the same as the French, the step even quicker than the Zouaves, and a good deal longer than that of the English infantry. Movements are executed with considerable precision, and as rapidly as in English light-infantry battalions. From the reports we had heard in the North, we expected to find ragged and half-clad regiments; instead of which we failed, during many rides through the various camps, to see one man who was not clad in serviceable attire. It was expected that winter clothing would be served out before the 1st of November, and that dress would then become more uniform. consumption; and we frequently journey had not been long. We were naturally anxious to inspect the ground upon which was fought the great battle, called in England "Bull's Run," but in "Secessia" that of "6 Manassas Plains;" the former name being in America applied to the engagement which took place on the 18th of July, three days previous to the great "stampede." The open space which formed the battle-field is scarcely a mile in length, and considerably less in breadth. Undulating ground declines to the centre of this clearing, through which runs the Warrenton high-road. Upon these slopes the great struggle took place. The object of the Federal general was to cross the valley and fall upon the flank and rear of the Confederates, who were drawn up in line of battle along Bull's Run, at right angles to the road. General Johnston had therefore to change his front when he found that a powerful attack was being made upon his left, and that the whole force of the enemy had already overlapped it, and was descending the hill to the Warrenton road. But the point to which the chief attention of officers and men is directed is the arms. Besides the Enfield rifle, most of the privates in the army carry at least one revolver and a bowie-knife: these are invariably kept bright and in good condition; and the early training which all Southerners undergo in shooting squirrels as soon as they are able to handle a gun, gives them a facility of using their weapons and a correctness of aim that renders their fire unusually formidable. The commissariat seemed to be from which success seemed inevitmost efficiently administered. A large depot of bread-stuffs is placed in convenient position, whence the different corps are supplied in waggons drawn by four horses, one of which a negro generally rides. The resources of the country produce the fresh meat necessary for the enormous daily General M'Dowell skilfully avoided the defences of the Confederates, and with great ability succeeded in conducting his troops to a point able. He reached the road without much opposition, and began ascending the broken ground in front. There the battle really began. Again and again the Southern brigades, as they came up in succession, were thrown into confusion by overpowering numbers, and forced to retreat into the woods at the summit of the hill. Generals Johnston and Beauregard came to the front at this crisis, rallied the wavering troops, and turned the tide in favour of the South. General Kirly Smith, who happened to be passing along the railway with troops for Manassas, hearing the engagement going on, stopped the train and brought at this seasonable moment four regiments into action. In another hour all was over, and then took place that remarkable "tall walk" so graphically and truthfully described by Mr Russell. More than four thousand smallarms and twenty-eight field-pieces, belonging to the United States army, fell into the hands of the Confederates. The Southern official account has not yet been published, but when it is, we think the public will read with surprise the list of articles actually carried over" to General Johnston's stores after the 21st of July. It will be seen that the celebrated masked batteries must have been altogether a myth, the battle having taken place at least two miles from where the nearest Confederate gun was situate on the morning, and at right angles to the position at which the attack was anticipated. Several wounded soldiers were walking about the ground the day we visited it, who took great pleasure in showing us the places where the hottest parts of the contest took place. One of them, an Irishman, belonged to that gallant band of 800 who bore the whole brunt of the enemy's left for the first two hours in the morning. He told us that this force consisted of two companies from New Orleans, called respectively "Tigers" and "Wild Cats," the 4th Alabama, and some companies of the 6th and 7th Georgian regiments. He said he himself was "bate up wid foitin," and when "Gineral Bewregard kem up wid rayinforcements in the afternoon and tould the 'Wild Cats' they had done enough-Bedad, they wint to the rear and got a few glasses of whisky, and kem back to the 'foit' as fresh as the flowers of May!" On our remarking that we had heard that the 69th Irish New York regiment had fought very bravely on the side of the North, he replied, "Indeed they did, sir; divil a bitter. Troth, the Irish did the best part of the foitin a both sides, and no mistake." !! A small pillar, in all respects like a milestone, has been erected on the spot where General Bartow fell. His last words are engraved upon it-"They've killed me, boys; but don't give up the fight." This is the only monument as yet erected; but numbers of graves are to be seen around the brow of the hill where the final struggle took place. We have heard it frequently remarked that the volunteer system was tried and found wanting at the battle of "Manassas ;" but surely the best reply that can be given to such a statement is that the whole of the Southern army is composed of volunteers; and we saw many regiments which arrived in Virginia only four days before the action. The time which we had allowed ourselves for our American tour being now nearly spent, we returned to New York, where we found most persons altogether in ignorance of the feelings and intentions of the South; and so strong is the confidence generally reposed in the numerical strength of their vast army, the alleged efficiency of the navy, and the great wealth of the New England States, that few persons are to be met with who think gloomily of the future. The hundreds of contractors, who are making large fortunes by the war, form no inconsiderable part of the public. The taxation consequent upon the State spending nearly £300,000 a-day has not yet fallen upon the people, while their worst passions are excited by an unscrupulous and one-sided press. Better men, and far more true to the Con stitution, than the Government, would then be heard. Genius, virtue, integrity, now languishing in Fort Lafayette, if too late to save the Union, will then at least be exerted to bind together what remains. But, alas! a raging democracy now supports a Ministry which bears no reproof, and will endure no criticism; and signs pregnant with those consequences eloquently predicted by Sir Bulwer Lytton are rising in the political horizon. General Fremont has been removed from the command of an army over which he possessed undoubted influence, and although no success has hitherto attended its efforts, the supporters of the Union in the West are ardent admirers of its late chief. Whether he is destined to become the head of an Abolition Cabinet at Washington, or the dictator of a North-Western Republic, we cannot attempt to foretell; but we mistake the character of the man if he be contented long to remain in a subordinate position. One thing is, however, certain; his removal will not affect Southern politics. By this measure, of course, Mr Lincoln wishes to impress upon the seceded States that it is his intention now to preserve the "institution" in all its integrity; but such a policy is too late. The South cannot believe in men who, merely catching at a straw, repudiate in the hour of peril the doctrines which they have hitherto held, and to which alone they owe their advancement. In these islands, of course, we all pray for universal emancipation. We have made enormous sacrifices in the cause ourselves; but we cannot help sympathising with ten millions of people struggling for independence; nor can we think that the condition of the negro in the Southern States will remain long what it now is, but that, if European intercourse be established with the Confederacy, and she be admitted into the family of nations, commerce, always favourable to freedom, will then gradually but surely effect far more humane results than those which the most sincere Abolitionists can ever attain. SOME ACCOUNT OF BOTH SIDES OF THE AMERICAN WAR. IF there be one characteristic which, more than another, distinguishes the intelligent portion of the British public, it is the desire to draw its own conclusions. It loves to be furnished with full and constant information of current events, but is suspicious of such accounts as bear the evident impress of partisanship. There is probably no newspaper writer whose letters have become so popular and so generally read as Mr Russell's; and, if we mistake not, they owe their popularity as much to the spirit of close criticism which pervades them, as to the remarkable powers of graphic description for which their author is famous. His exposure of pretensions and fallacies alike in his letters from the South at the outset, and in those from the North during the progress of the war of Secession, have rendered him unpopular with both parties engaged, but have gained for his statements a degree of reliance; while the strong Northern bias of the Times' New York correspondent deprives his representations of that effect which their ability would deserve. It may be observed in passing, that in no respect is the contrast more strongly marked between English and "American" manners than in the different style and tone of the newspaper press of the respective countries. For, however eagerly educated and refined persons on the other side of the Atlantic may disclaim the tone of their Press as a true indication of public opinion, the record of events would not be uniformly garbled and inflated did simplicity and accuracy suit the appetites of those for whom the journalists cater. They read contentedly every day accounts of victories and successes gained by the Northern forces, by which it is hardly conceivable that they can be misled. On the other hand, among us at present the complaint is com 66 mon that we are excluded from all reliable intelligence of the position and prospects of the rebels ;" and we cannot help rejecting the marvellous tales, derived from Northern sources, of hard-won victories against heavy odds, and of the daily slaughter of the enemy in hand-tohand conflicts, which never lead to any appreciable results. Under these circumstances, a statement, comparative of both sides of the position, and derived from recent personal observation, which the facilities afforded by the military commanders enabled the writer to make, may not be unacceptable to our readers, at a time when the impressions of writers in magazines and newspapers on the subject of the American war, all along uncertain and fluctuating, appear to be affected by recent accounts of the imposing preparations of the North. The disparity of the resources of the contending communities appears to be assumed, and a deduction is made that, as the Times not long since said, "the tide may be too strong even for the obstinacy of the Southern race to resist." It is not indeed surprising, if, as the correspondent of the Times has owned, Englishmen at Washington and New York be led insensibly, by the boastful language of the newspapers and of public men, almost to a conviction of the strength of the community amongst which they are living. Every one must be conscious of having received such impressions under similar circumstances. But it is surprising to find existing a gross misapprehension, on the part of those who might be presumed to be well informed, of the distribution and numbers as well as of the condition of the Confederate forces. From the blindness with which, in the few engagements of the war, Federal generals have fallen into well-laid traps, and, if their despatches can |