[56]
September 23.
The blockade-running steamer Phantom was chased ashore near Rich Inlet, N. C., by the Union gunboat Connecticut, and afterward deserted by her crew, who set her on fire before leaving; in the afternoon, men were sent on shore from the Connecticut, to destroy the boats of the steamer that had been drawn up on the beach. While in the act of destroying them, the men were attacked by a party of concealed rebels, who succeeded in driving them back to the gunboat with a loss of one killed and one wounded.--Lieutenant-General Longstreet issued General Orders to his troops, congratulating them on the brilliant victory which had crowned their heroic efforts at Chickamauga.--at one o'clock this morning, a raid was made upon a telegraph office opposite Donaldsonville, La., by a band of rebel guerrillas, who captured and carried off fourteen men of the Fourteenth regiment of New York cavalry and the telegraph operator.--the English steamer Diamond, while attempting to run the blockade, was captured by the United States steamer Stettin, off St. Simon's Sound, Ga.--A secret expedition from Beaufort, S. C., to the mainland, under Captain J. E. Bryant, of the Eighth Maine volunteers, and consisting of two companies of colored troops, the chaplain of Colonel Higginson's regiment, a telegraph operator, and a lieutenant of the Fourth South-Carolina volunteers, returned with only partial success. The expedition started by order of General Gillmore, with the view, not of cutting the rebel telegraph between Charleston and Savannah, but of attaching a wire and receiving their despatches. Owing to the carelessness of the operator, the wire, instead of being hid behind the pole, was allowed to hang in plain sight, and was discovered by the passengers in the first passing train; not, however, until some very important messages had been received, and among others a telegram to the commander of the rebel troops in Savannah from Beauregard, ordering all his forces to Charleston, to engage in an attack on Folly Island.
