--The blockade of
Wilmington, N. C., by the
Yankees is not kept up without loss to themselves.
It is getting to be a hazardous and expensive affair.
The
Journal, of last Monday, says:
‘
We learn from the mouths of the river that some of the
Yankee blockaders have recently been in trouble, one of them having gone under.
It would seem that on Saturday night, or early Sunday morning, she was pursuing a vessel coming into
New Inlet.--The pursued vessel run in between the shore and the "
South Rock," The blockader, in trying to cut her off, must have touched on the rock hard enough to make a hole in her bottom.
At any rate she sunk in five fathoms water.
The chased vessel arrived safe at her wharf.
It was quite dark at the time.
’
On Saturday morning
Col. Hedrick, commanding at
Bald Head, struck one of the Yankee ships three or four times, and from the agitation on board, and the crowding of boats around her, it is quite probable that she, too, is in a precarious condition.
It is said that the
Yankee blockade off this harbor has been increased very recently by three additional vessels, among them the much-talked of double ended steamer
Eutaw, the fastest vessel in the
Yankee service, and, by their account, the fastest war vessel afloat.
Both ends are alike, like a ferry boat, so that she can run either way with equal facility.
It is not a little remarkable that the
Daylight, one of the very few blockaders sunk or blown up at sea by batteries on shore, met her fate from a shell thrown from an old-style thirty two, in battery
Gatlin, under the command of
Capt. Lane, of
Col. Lamb's force.--The saucy craft ventured in too close after a vessel (the
Beauregard, we think) that had been run ashore, when the battery opened on her. As night began to fall a heavy report was heard at sea, but its cause was not understood.
At
Fort Fisher, some five miles to the southward, it was thought to proceed from the firing or bursting of a very heavy gun.--It was thought a little strange that the
Daylight no longer made her appearance off the coast, but the mystery was not solved until the
Yankee papers brought information of the explosion of the
Daylight by a shell entering her magazine.
Only five persons escaped to tell the tale.
This occurred towards the close of last year.
