June 1, 1863, The New York Herald
A despatch received at the Navy Department yesterday from Admiral Porter, near Vicksburg, reports that in the recent attack at Haines’ Bluff three powerful steamers and a ram were destroyed at Yazoo City. The ram was a monster, three hundred and ten feet long, seventy feet beam, to be covered with four inch iron plates. Also that a fine navy yard, with machine shops of all kinds, sawmills, blacksmiths’ shops, &c., were burned up. The property destroyed and captured amounted in all to over two millions of dollars. Unofficial despatches were also received at Washington yesterday from General Grant army, dated on Tuesday last, the 26th ult., which state that no material change had occurred in the condition of affairs there since the day before. The news of that day we have already published, and it will be remembered that it did not report much progress since the Friday previous. On Monday evening, the 25th ult., it is said that General Pemberton asked for and obtained from General Grant a truce of two and a half hours to bury the rebel dead. The fight was renewed on Tuesday, but we have no particulars. Rebel accounts contain various rumors relative to the condition of things at Vicksburg. The Chattanooga Rebel of Friday reports from below Vicksburg that General Banks has crossed the Mississippi with his army at Bayou Sara, that General Grant sent in a flag of truce about his sick and wounded, and that the slaughter of the Union troops was far greater in the assault upon Vicksburg than in any battle during the war. The Mississippian of Tuesday says that Saturday’s battle at Vicksburg was the most stubborn of all.
The Memphis Appeal reports another splendid cavalry raid of Colonel Grierson from Baton Rouge, in which he captured and destroyed a large camp of the rebels.
Our special army correspondence from the vicinity of Vicksburg today contains an interesting account of the famous battle fought at Champion Hills, near the Big Black river.
A despatch from General Stahel from Fairfax Court House yesterday details the particulars and results of the rebel raid of Mosby’s cavalry at Catlett’s Station on Saturday, in which a train was burned and the locomotive damaged by six-pound shots from the rebel howitzers. The enemy was pursued by Colonel Mann and were brought to a stand near Greenwich, their guns captured and their troops dispersed. We give a list of the killed and wounded in this affair today.
It is said that General Burnside will remove the headquarters of the Army of Ohio next week to Hickman Bridge, Kentucky, a place about ten miles south of Nicholasville. A despatch was sent under a flag of truce the day before yesterday by General Burnside to General Bragg, stating that if any retaliation for the hanging of two spies, executed recently according to the usages of war, should be resorted to by the rebels he would hang all the rebel officers in his hands.
A despatch from Shelbyville on the 28th says that Mr. Vallandigham was still there, but would go to Virginia in a few days.
We have nothing new concerning the rebel privateers and their movements.
The United States steamer Vanderbilt and several other vessels of Commodore Wilkes’ squadron were at St. Thomas on the 20th ult., supposed to be watching for the enemy’s ships.