February 27, 1863, The New York Herald
The rebels appear to be actively engaged in making raids on this side of the Rappahannock. It is stated by a Washington journal that on the night before last a picket guard of Union cavalry, on the Chantilly roads, out of Centreville, was pounced upon, and all but one man captured, by a force of a hundred rebels, after firing two rounds. It is also ascertained that a number of the enemy crossed the river the same night at Kelly’s Ford, a few miles from Rappahannock Station, threatening Stafford Court House; that quite a large body of them occupy Warrenton, and that Stonewall Jackson is pushing up the valley towards Strasburg.
By an arrival from Port Royal we are put in possession of further information concerning the difference between Generals Hunter and Foster, the leading facts of which we before published. General Hunter has peremptorily ordered the staff of General Foster to leave his department and proceed North by the first steamer; and he has also put General Stevenson, of General Foster’s corps, under arrest at Hilton Head, for stating in conversation with his brother officers that he objected to the employment of negro troops in the government service, and that he would as soon be beaten as employ them as soldiers. However, as General Foster has since gone to Washington for instructions and again returned to Port Royal, it is probable that the difficulty as to the commands will be all settled, and everything will be soon right again.
The news from the West is important. From Kentucky we learn that the enemy were retreating from the State by way of Mount Sterling and Hazel Green, and that Colonel Kinkle, with a force of eighteen hundred men, was pursuing them. On the other hand, despatches from Cincinnati tell various stories of the progress of the Kentucky raid – one to the effect that Gen. Breckinridge is advancing on Lexington with twenty thousand rebels, and that our troops were falling back upon that point. The Union transport Hetty Gilman, with forage and provisions, was captured by a band of Morgan’s guerillas at a point five miles from Woodbury, on Barren river, and fears were entertained that the steamer D.B. Campbell, bound for Bowling Green, would share the same fate.
The rebels were overtaken yesterday near Mt. Sterling, and were completely beaten, after a brisk fight.
The capture of the ram Queen of the West is confirmed by an arrival at Cairo. The destruction of a rebel steamer by the Indianola near Port Hudson is reported. A full and highly interesting description of her daring run through the blockade at Vicksburg is given today in our correspondence from the headquarters of General Grant’s army. Much suffering is said to exist at Vicksburg, and deserters from there state that unless relief soon arrives the rebels will be compelled to evacuate the place.
A cowardly attack was made on Wednesday by a rebel band upon a train of cars, filled with people, going from Louisville to Nashville, at a place named Woodburn, twelve miles below Bowling Green. The cars were burned, and the locomotive was sent ahead in the hope that it would come into collision with an up passenger train; but owing to the state of the roads the plan failed.
The schooner Wm. Stairs, which arrived at Halifax from Trinidad, reports that on February 10, in latitude 27, longitude 68, she exchanged signals with the Alabama. She was showed the federal and then the Confederate flag.
A despatch from Charleston to the Savannah Republican, dated the 14th, says that three steamers (the Ruby, Leopard and Wagner) from Nassau on the 9th, arrived there that morning with valuable cargoes; and that the steamer Douglass ran out successfully last night and took Hon. James B. Clay, of Kentucky, for Liverpool. It continues to say that the blockade is virtually raised, as not a gun was fired at any of these vessels.
A Liverpool letter of February 9, in the Manchester Examiner, noticing the arrival of the American food ship George Griswold at Liverpool, mentions, as showing the way in which some people reciprocate the sympathy of our transatlantic brethren, the fact that as the George Griswold was coming into port with succor for our distressed operatives, the steamer Dolphin was sailing out with a cargo of munitions of war, &c., en route via Nashua, for a Confederate port.
The Paris Moniteur contains decrees confirming two nominations to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor, made by the commander-in-chief of the expedition in Mexico. General Woll has also been promoted to the rank of commander in the same Order.