[London,] 17 November [1862] 

Dear Engels, 

Best thanks for the £5. 

It seems to me that you take too one-sided a view of the 
American fracas." At the American coffeeHouse I have looked 
through a lot of Southern papers and from them it is plain that the 
Confederacy is in a very tight corner. The English papers 
suppressed information on the battle of ‘Corinth’.*” The Southern 
papers depict it as the most exceptional stroke of ill-luck to have 
befallen them since the call to arms. The State of Georgia has 
declared the Conreperate ‘conscription bill’ to be null and void. 
Virginia, in the person of Floyd tHe ter, has contested the right 
uf ‘Jefferson Davis's creatures’ (sic) to continue raising men in that 
State. Oldham, who represents Texas in the Richmond Congress, 

4 See this volume, p. 428. 

17* 

has formally protested against the transport to the East, Le., 
Virginia, of the South-West’s ‘crack troops’. From all these piseuTes 
two things undeniably emerge: 

That the Confederate Government has overreached itself in its 
frantic efforts to fill the ranks of the army; 

that the srates are asserting state rights vis-a-vis the Confedera- 
cy*”” just as the latter made a pretext of them vis-a-vis the Union. 

I consider the victories scored by the Democrats in the North*” 
to be a reaction and one which was made all the easier for that 
conservative and siackiec element by the poor manner in which the 
Federal Government waged the war and by its financial BLUNDERS. 
For that matter, its the sort of reaction that occurs mn every 
revolutionary movement and that was so strong at the time of the 
National Convention, for instance, that the proposal to submit the 
King’s* death to suffrage wuniversel was considered counter- 
revolutionary, and so strong under the Directory that 
Mr Bonaparte I had to bombard Paris.*” 

On the other hand, elections prior to 4 Dec. 1864 will not affect 
the composition of Congress; hence, they will merely act as a spur 
to the Republican government, over whose head a sword is 
hanging. And, in any case, the Republican House of Representa- 
tives will make better use of its term of office, if only out of hatred 
for the opposing party.** 

As ro McClellan, in his own army he’s got Hooker and other 
Republicans, who would arrest him any day if ordered to do so by 
the government. 

Add to that the French attempt at intervention*? which will 
evoke a reaction against the reaction. 

So things are not, I think, too bad. Rather, what might possibly 
do damage to my views is the sheeplike attitude of the working 
men in Lancashire. Such a THING HAS NEVER BEEN HEARD OF IN THE WORLD. 
The more so since those scoundrels of manufacturers themselves 
don’t even pretend to be ‘making sacrifices’, but are content to 
leave to the rest of England the honour of keeping their army on 
its feet—i.e., let the rest of England bear the cost of maintaining 
their variable capital. 

Of late, England has made more of an ass of itself than any other 
country, the working men by their servile Christian nature, the 
bourgeois and aristocrats by the enthusiasm they have shown for 
slavery 1N ITs Most direct Form. But the two manifestations are 
complementary. 

a Louis XVI 

As to our ‘handsome William’,* the chap is in racr delectable. 
Bismarck’s government, by the by, is nothing more nor less than 
the Little German progressists’ pious wish come true.**? They used 
to rave about the ‘man of progress’, Louis Bonaparte. Now they 
see what having a ‘Bonapartist’ government in Prussia means. 
After all, Bismarck was in a sense appointed by Bonaparte (and 
Russia). 

I shall look out the Presses for you. 

Salut (also to the ladies). 

Your 
K. M.