February 7.
This morning a deserter from the rebel army came to the National headquarters at Yorktown, Va., and stated that there were some twenty-five more of the rebels nine miles from Williamsburgh that wanted to give them selves up, but were afraid to come into the lines for fear of being fired upon. Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis, in command of the Fifth Pennsylvania, sent a squadron of his cavalry after them. When the main body of the squadron had reached the spot where the men were said to be waiting, they were fired upon by guerrillas in ambush, and twenty saddles were emptied the first volley. At the same time a body of rebel cavalry was seen charging down the road at some distance off. What remained of the Union cavalry, immediately started to receive them. They had just got under good speed, when they came in contact with telegraph wires that the guerrillas had suspended across the road and tied to the trees on each side, throwing horses and riders to the ground and tumbling them in a heap together, cutting and bruising both man and horse terribly. One captain and one lieutenant were taken prisoners, one captain was mortally wounded, and one lieutenant was killed. Thirty-five of the men were missing, and were either killed or taken prisoners.
The guerrilla leader, Captain Dawson, and several of his men, were this day captured by a detachment of Union troops, under the command of Colonel Wood, Twenty-second Ohio volunteers, in the vicinity of Dyersburgh, Tenn.--Chicago Tribune.
The steamers T. D. Wagner, Leopard, and Ruby, all from Nassau, N. P., with “large and valuable cargoes,” ran the blockade and arrived at Charleston, S. C., at an early hour this morning.--J. P. Benjamin, the rebel Secretary of State, addressed a circular to the foreign consuls in the Southern States, informing them that the National fleets having been dispersed at Galveston, and Sabine Pass, Texas, those ports were open to the trade of the merchants of their several nations.--Eli Thayer, at the Cooper Institute at New York, delivered an address advocating the colonization of Florida with loyal colonists from the North.
