October 9.
Two iron-plated rams, built on the Mersey, England, by the Lairds for the use of the rebel government, were seized by order of the British government, upon a charge of an intention to evade the neutrality laws.--Major-General J. G. Foster sent the following despatch to the National War Department: “I have the honor to report that the expedition sent out on Sunday, under General Wistar, to break up or capture the guerrillas and boats' crews organized by the enemy in Matthews County, has returned, having in the main accomplished its object. Four rebel naval officers, twenty-five men, and twenty-five head of cattle belonging to the Confederacy, together with horses, mules, and arms, are the results. A large number of rebel boats were destroyed. Our loss was one man killed. General Wistar reports the Fourth United States infantry (colored) making thirty miles in one day, with no stragglers.”
Fort Johnson, in Charleston harbor, S. C., was again silenced. A well-directed shot from the Union batteries entered an embrasure and dismounted the gun.--one of the two-hundred pounder batteries on Morris Island, that had been silent for a week, opened on Fort Sumter and the other rebel forts.
