April 17, 1863, The New York Herald
General Foster has been relieved from his dangerous position at Washington, N.C. A despatch received by General Dix, at Fortress Monroe, yesterday, says that a steamer, with a regiment of troops and a supply of provisions and ammunition, succeeded in running the rebel batteries on Tar river, and arrived at Washington on Tuesday.
There was nothing new from Suffolk yesterday. The rebels still continue to invest the place. Our correspondence to date of the 15th gives all the details of the skirmishing up to that time. No general engagement has yet taken place; but the utmost vigilance and activity prevails on both sides.
The Richmond Sentinel says that our iron-clad fleet left Charleston harbor for the south on Sunday, at four o’clock in the afternoon; but that the impression prevailed there that they would soon return and renew the attack upon the city.
Our correspondent at Hamilton, Bermuda, informs us, under date of the 6th of April, that the schooner Legate, which arrived there from Cuba on the 30th of March, reported that the British warship Cygnet, when entering a port of Cuba from a cruise undertaken from the same place, was fired on by two United States vessels – one on each side her – at one and the same moment. Captain Masters, of the Legate, had heard that on the commander of the cygnet demanding an explanation from the American officers, he was informed that they had mistaken his vessel for the Alabama, Florida, or some other rebel privateer. This temporary difficulty, if it even really occurred, may have been exaggerated into the rumors just forwarded from Havana concerning the arrest and parole of Admiral Wilkes.