March 24, 1863, The New York Herald
The news from the Southwest today is important. It is stated that on the 14th instant Admiral Farragut came into action with his fleet at Port Hudson, and after a brisk engagement with the batteries, succeeded in passing the fort with all his fleet, consisting of eight vessels, leaving the Mississippi behind, which ran aground, and was set on fire by order of the Admiral. The army is reported to be within five miles of the enemy’s works. Despatches from Southwest Pass, La., appear to confirm this statement. They are dated on the 15th, and add that heavy skirmishing was going on in the advance; that Colonel Clark, aid to General Banks, was slightly wounded, and that the army was in good spirits and would move in a few hours.
No news from any of our naval officers to this effect has been received, and this fact excites much suspicion concerning its truth.
Our Baton Rouge correspondence relative to the movements of General Banks’ army, today, will be found full of interest upon this subject.
Admiral Porter, in a despatch to Washington yesterday, says he has received information from Lieutenant Commander Watson Smith that on the 7th instant the whole expedition arrived in the Tallahatchie, which gives us control of the heart of the State of Mississippi. The vessels all got through in fighting condition, excepting the Petrel, which lost her wheel. This movement alarmed the rebels. They are energetically at work preparing themselves for defence. There is much distress in Vicksburg. The occupants have no meat, but are living almost exclusively on corn meal.
Advices from the Yazoo pass expedition represent that the movements are slow, but that there is every prospect of getting through successfully. Our forces had debarked near Greenwood, and were besieging Fort Pemberton. A number of our transports were badly damaged in getting through the Pass. The ram Lioness overhauled the steamer Parallel with 3,000 bales of cotton on the 10th inst., crowding her so closely that the rebels were compelled to run her ashore and burn her. The rebels burn the cotton on every plantation as the army advances. The water was let into the canal at Lake Providence on the 16th inst. The aperture is twenty feet wide, and was opening at its mouth still wider. The greater part of the town was threatened with an overflow on the following morning.
It was believed in Washington yesterday that news of the evacuation of Vicksburg might be received there within a very few days.
Reports from Galveston state that the French Consul there, M. Thereon, had been expelled by Jefferson Davis, it was supposed because the French official had been intriguing to take Texas out of the Southern confederacy, and make it an independent State under French protection.
The Richmond papers are croaking fearfully over the want of food under which the rebel armies are now suffering. All the country around the localities where the armies are situated is completely stripped of provisions, and the only resource lies in the railroads, which are said to be giving out, for want of laborers to keep them in order. The wood work is rotting and the machinery getting out of repair. The Richmond Examiner says that “If they are allowed to fall through from any causes, government and people may prepare for a retreat of our armies, and the surrender of much invaluable country now in our possession.”
The late news from Barbadoes, which we published yesterday, relative to the burning of a ship laden with guano, by the pirate Florida, created much excitement in Wall Street. Rumors were busy as to what vessel it might be. Several of those who it was supposed would have been about that vicinity at that time were mentioned, such as the ship Regular, from San Francisco, of and for Boston; the ships Aurora and Ella; the latter was at Sombrero at last dates, loading guano. The underwriters, it appears, place no reliance on the reports.
During a recent debate in the English House of Commons on the conditions of the navy, Lord Clarence Paget stated that the United States government did not commence to build armor-plated vessels until […..] saw that the South were building them.”
Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, England, have launched two steamers – the Quang Jung and Tientsn – from their yard at that place. These vessels form part of the Anglo-Chinese fleet recently spoken of as being building in England under that pretence, for the service of the rebels of the South.