April 1, 1863, The New York Herald
From all the information which reaches our lines at Suffolk and Yorktown it appears evident that the enemy are about evacuating Richmond. The large guns and machinery are being conveyed to Chattanooga, as though the hazard of the die was to be accepted at that point.
A successful attack on Point Pleasant, Va., was made by the rebels, 700 strong, on Monday. They were subsequently repulsed, however, with a loss of twelve killed and fourteen prisoners.
The news from the Southwest today is important. Rebel accounts from the Richmond papers state that General Morgan’s guerillas had a contest at Milton, Tenn., on the 20th inst., in which they drove the union troops two miles, when they were reinforced, and the battle ceased. General Morgan admits that his loss in officers was very heavy. On the same authority we have the fact that General Forrest captured 800 Union troops at Brentwood on the 26th ult., destroyed a house containing a large quantity of commissary stores, burnt the railroad bridge, tore up the track, and got possession of seventeen loaded wagons.
The intelligence of the retreat of the rebels from Kentucky is confirmed by our latest news from Cincinnati. General Pegram, at last accounts, was south of Stanford, hotly pursued, and is reported to have been compelled to abandon his cattle and train. The rebels are reported advancing on Murfreesboro, Tenn.
An attempt to run by the rebel batteries at Vicksburg was made by the Union rams Lancaster and Switzerland on Wednesday last, without success. According to a despatch, dated at Cairo yesterday, as soon as they came within range the rebels opened a tremendous fire. The Lancaster was struck thirty times. Her entire bow was shot away, causing her to sink immediately. All the crew except two escaped. The Switzerland was disabled by a sixty-four pound ball penetrating the steam drum. She floated down, the batteries still firing and striking her repeatedly, until finally the Albatross ran alongside and towed her to the lower mouth of the canal. While coming up the river the Hartford and Albatross encountered a battery at Grand Gulf more formidable than those at Port Hudson. The Hartford was struck fourteen times, and had three men killed. Both vessels returned the fire vigorously, and both were more or less injured.
The expedition under General Sherman, to the rear of Haines’ Bluff, by way of Steele’s Bayou and the Sunflower, had returned to Young’s Point. There is nothing definite from the Yazoo Pass expedition, under General Ross and General Quimby.
The rebel privateers continue their depredations. The Alabama burned on February 21 the splendid ship Golden Eagle, of New York, bound for Queenstown, Ireland, with guano, and destroyed on the same day the bark Olive Jane, of Boston, bound from Bordeaux to New York, with a rich cargo of wines and fruits. The captain of the British bark Crusoe, who arrived at this port yesterday from St. Thomas March 17, reports that the English screw steamers Pet, from England, and Arius, which had previously landed a cargo of cotton in Porto Rico from Mobile, both sailed on the 16th for a port in the South. The British frigate Phaeton sailed in company with them as a convoy.