May 26, 1863, The New York Herald
The battles of General Grant in the vicinity of Vicksburg, and the brilliant victories of Admiral Porter on the Yazoo, have to be numbered among the most successful operations of the war. Admiral Porter, in his official despatch, dated from the Yazoo river, on the 20th inst., details the capture of Haines’ Bluff by Lieutenant Walker, of the gunboat DeKalb, who not only drove out the enemy, but secured all their guns, ammunition, camps and equipage. The defences consisted of fourteen forts, and took the enemy twelve months to construct. Admiral Porter destroyed the gun carriages, blew up the magazines, and destroyed the works generally, which he describes as a network of defences such as he never saw before. Admiral Porter, in his official despatch, also describes the close investment of Vicksburg by Gen. Grant’s army, upon which city, he says, he hopes to be able to announce a general assault very soon, and the capture thereof. He says, further, that there has never been a case during the war where the rebels have been so successfully beaten at all points, and that the patience and endurance shown by our army and navy for so many months are about being rewarded.
The news received in Washington yesterday, although it does not embody any official account of the capture of Vicksburg, all tends to the belief that General Grant has by this time become master of the place. The latest intelligence the government appears to have received was up to Friday last, at nine o’clock P.M., when it was supposed that the city must fall on the next day. At that time General McPherson’s force, in the centre, was within one mile of the Court House at Vicksburg, while General Sherman on the right, and General McClernand on the left, were each within a mile and a half of the town, and the gunboats were shelling it in front.
Despatches from Cairo last night state that up to nine o’clock no boats from below had arrived at Memphis, and that some days may elapse before they have positive information, as all the boats were sent up the Yazoo river on special service.
The Southern journals, as will be seen by the extracts which we give today, speak despondingly of the state of affairs at Vicksburg. Without having any more official information evidently than that which we possess relative to the capture of that place, they predicate their arguments upon the assumption that it has fallen, that Port Hudson is abandoned, and even that the whole Mississippi is in possession of the federal troops, and argue from these standpoints that the rebellion can still maintain itself. The Richmond Whig says:– “If we cannot bear defeat as well as the Yankees we are unworthy to be free. Until some one of our large armies has been beaten as often and as severely as the Yankee Army of the Potomac, we cannot say our courage has been fully tested, or our ability to conquer peace and independence has been established.”
Our correspondence from General Dix’s department today will be found very interesting, giving in detail the description of Colonel Kilpatrick’s brilliant cavalry raid into Matthews and Gloucester counties.
The news from the Army of the Potomac is that all is quiet along the […..] lines,” and that is rather old news now.
A despatch from St. Louis, dated yesterday, says that a band of rebel guerillas captured the town of Richmond, Clay county, Mo., on Tuesday night, together with the Union force which occupied it. Two officers of the Twenty-fifth Missouri were killed in the fight, and another lieutenant was shot after the Union troops surrendered. It was feared that the whole force would be treated in the same manner. The guerillas made a clean sweep of the whole town. The same band also plundered the town of Plattsburg, Clinton county, on Thursday night, and took $11,000 from the Court House belonging to the State.
Mr. Vallandigham arrived at Murfreesboro about eleven o’clock on Sunday night by special train; and after some hours’ conversation with General Rosecrans and others, he was put into an open wagon, and was thus conducted, surrounded by an escort of cavalry, to the outposts of the Union army, and delivered yesterday morning, at nine o’clock, into the hands of the enemy, according to Mr. Lincoln’s fiat. A private soldier of the Confederate army received him, to whom Mr. Vallandigham introduced himself as a citizen of Ohio, sent into the enemy lines by force and without his consent, and therefore surrendered himself as a prisoner of war.
Our advices from St. Thomas via Colon state that the Alabama is at the Moule (Guadaloupe), blockaded by the United States steamers Oneida and Alabama. Admiral Wilkes reached St. Thomas on the 30th ult. from Havana via Ponce, Porto Rico, and after communicating with Mr. Edgar, the United States Consul, proceeded to Guadaloupe in the Vanderbilt, in search of the pirate. Should she be met at that place by the brave old Admiral, there will be no chance of her committing fresh depredations on the merchant vessels of the United States.