April 16, 1863, The New York Herald
Our latest news from General Foster at Washington, N.C., up to the 12th instant, states that he can hold out for three weeks; that he has plenty of supplies, and can resist any force the enemy have to bring against him. On the other hand the rebel accounts represent his position as most critical. The Wilmington Journal of the 9th says that Washington was actually in the hands of General Hill on the day previous; but this is not probable.
Our Newburn correspondence today gives a full account of the fight at Blount’s Mills, from which our troops were compelled to fall back to Newbern, and were thus unable to reinforce General Foster.
There was a pretty heavy skirmishing going on during Tuesday and Wednesday on the Blackwater, near Suffolk, in which the forces of General Peck engaged the attacking party of the rebels with some success. Our Suffolk correspondence contains a very full account of the affair.
We give numerous extracts from the Southern journals today, and despatches from different points in Rebeldom, including Charleston, Mobile, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Jackson, Mississippi. The affair at Charleston forms the principal subject of comment in the Richmond papers. They are exultant over the failure of our iron-clads to capture the city, but erroneously credit it to the firing of the forts; whereas it is known that it was owing to the obstructions in the channel that our boats did not knock Charleston to pieces.
The Richmond Whig reports that a fight took place at Williamsburg on Saturday, the 4th inst., between the forces under General Wise and our troops; that at an early hour on that morning the rebels drove in the Union pickets and occupied the town, the latter retiring to Fort Magruder, from which point they commenced shelling the place. General Wise took a position near the college and replied to their fire.
On the night of the 12th inst. the steamer Stonewall Jackson (formerly the Leopard), while attempting to run into Charleston harbor, was chased by half a dozen blockaders, which fired at her, and she received several shots through her hull. The captain, finding it impossible to escape, ran the steamer on the beach and burned her. The cargo consisted of several pieces of field artillery, two hundred barrels of saltpetre, forty thousand army shoes and a large assortment of merchandise.
It does not appear that the Navy Department received any despatches from Admiral Du Pont by the Arago relative to the attack on Charleston.
General Shields has resigned his commission in the United States army. He arrived in San Francisco on the 20th ult., but occupies no position in the Military Department of the Pacific.
Jefferson Davis has issued an address to the people of the Southern confederacy, which we publish in another column, urging them to devote their agricultural labor to the production of food. He says that although the soldiers are on half rations of meat there is plenty of it in the confederacy, but that a difficulty exists in its transportation, which is now about to be remedied.
By the arrival of the steamer Melita from Havana, we learn the curious story that Admiral Wilkes is a paroled prisoner there until he can explain why the Vanderbilt fired a shot at a Spanish coasting steamer a short time ago.