May 29, 1863, The New York Herald
The latest official news from Vicksburg still remains as we first announced it – only up to Friday night at nine o’clock– just a week ago. Several reports from rebel sources and others have reached us since, and have been published in order as they arrived. Vicksburg is not yet taken, as far as any reliable accounts testify. A despatch to Mobile from Jackson, Mississippi, dated on Sunday last, says that firing was heard in the vicinity of Vicksburg (forty-five miles off) up to nine o’clock that morning, and had then ceased. The same despatch states that on that morning the Twentieth Mississippi regiment (mounted) dashed into Raymond, capturing four hundred prisoners, that fourteen were sent to Mobile and that the rest, being sick and wounded, were paroled.
The rebel journals appear to gain confidence day by day. The Richmond Whig of the 27th says that the news from Vicksburg up to Thursday evening, the 21st, was most encouraging for the rebels. It quotes the Mobile Register to show that the city of Vicksburg can only be reduced by very slow operations, that Joe Johnston is in the rear of General Grant with a largely increasing force, and that he may be compelled to raise the siege by cutting off his supplies.
It is reported from Cairo that one portion of General Banks’ army had arrived at Warrenton, on the Mississippi river, a short distance below Vicksburg.
There is some interest today in our news from the vicinity of the Rappahannock – not that General Hooker has made any advance movement, but that the enemy is in motion, their trains being observed moving towards Culpepper, followed by a heavy column of troops. General Lee, it is said, has issued an address to his army congratulating them upon their past achievements and foreshadowing a raid into Maryland. He tells them that they are to have long and rapid marches through a country without railroads, and calls upon every man to be prepared for the severest hardships.
Considerable anxiety prevailed in Alexandria yesterday, upon the report that Stuart’s rebel cavalry were about to make a raid upon that city. All the male contrabands were forced by the Provost Marshal to work in constructing new intrenchments there.
The raids of the rebel privateers on the ocean are more daring and destructive than ever. The story which we publish today from Captain Potter, of the ship Oneida, gives a stirring account of the proceedings of the Alabama and Florida, acting in conjunction, recently, which involve the destruction of no less than nine vessels, namely:– Commonwealth, Henrietta, Lafayette, Kate Cory and Kingfisher, in all making five ships, two barks, one brig and a schooner. We give sketches of the different vessels above alluded to.