We are indebted to the courteous officers of the
Exchange Bureau for files of Northern papers of the 20th instant.
We gave a summary of the news of that date yesterday, and to-day add a few items of interest:
The movements of Grant's army.
A letter from the Army of the Potomac, dated last Wednesday, says:
‘
The Second corps, having been unsuccessful in the attack on the enemy on the north side of the
James river on Sunday, fell back to a safe position, which they occupied until yesterday, when another assault was determined on and carried successfully, the enemy having been driven from their works with heavy loss in killed and wounded and several hundred prisoners who fell into our hands.
’
The Second corps also captured a few heavy guns which the enemy had not time to carry off, besides a quantity of small arms.
Our loss was quite severe.
Our troops still hold the position they gained.
The cavalry under
General Gregg had an engagement with the rebels, and drove them from some works near the
New Market road, but they rallied from the different points in the vicinity and finally forced the cavalry back upon the infantry supports.
Colonel Gregg, commanding the Second brigade, Second division cavalry corps, was severely wounded in the engagement.
The Washington
Republican has the following about the movements prior to the seizure of the
Weldon road:
‘
By this strategic movement across the
James river,
General Grant compelled
Lee to extend his lines to that degree that there must be some weak points in it, which
Grant will probably find.
’
The line held by our forces is already entrenched so strongly that they cannot be driven from them by the rebels.
There is a good deal of marching and countermarching of divisions, and it is evident that some important movement is on foot near the
Capital of Dixie.
Early yesterday morning the rebels in front of the Ninth corps made a desperate assault on our works, probably under the impression that the movement up
James river had obliged
Grant to materially weaken his lines in front of
Petersburg.
The positions of the other corps were also assaulted, and for several hours a fierce battle raged, the cannonading being terrific, interspersed with musketry on either side.
The enemy did not catch us napping, and they were finally repulsed, leaving their dead and wounded on the field, between the two lines.
The rebels are represented as having lost heavily.
Affairs in New York.
A New York letter, dated the 19th, in the Philadelphia
Enquirer,, say:
‘
The city delegates to the Syracuse State Convention have returned with sore heads.
They say
Fernando Wood and his gang were completely outgeneraled by the peace men from the rural districts.--Fernando's programme was to have an advisory committee authorized to go to the Chicago Convention, there to dictate terms.
Fernando expected to lead this delegation, and by virtue of his position, to be able to procure, if not a place on the ticket at
Chicago, then his renomination for Congress in New York.
But, as I have said, the expectation was cruelly disappointed by the voting down of the resolution appointing the committee; and so Fernando comes home, feeling, for the first time, that there are smarter men even than he in the bucolic regions.
’
The "sensation"
Washington telegrams to some of the morning papers about a proposition for an armistice soon to be made by the
Government to the rebels, are attracting some attention, but it is presumed that nobody but the very green place any faith in them.
Indeed, there is a strong suspicion that these "telegrams" never came over the wires at all, but were manufactured in this city by certain parties to promote schemes of their own. As the "postponement of the draft" is coupled with the"armistice, " the substitute brokers say that prices for recruits have fallen from twenty-five to thirty per cent. Perhaps it was to accomplish this very thing that the "special telegrams" were connected.
United States Commissioner Osborne this morning issued a warrant, at the instance of the United States District Attorney, for the arrest of
Mr. John Mullaby, editor and proprietor of the
Metropolitan Record, for incendiary and seditious articles in that journal, counseling riot and resistance to the draft.
Up to four o'clock this afternoon, however,
Mr. Mullaby could not be found.
The process against him is a civil, not a military one, as in the case of certain
New Jersey editors arrested recently for like offences.
The grave-diggers at Calvary and Greenwood Cemeteries have struck for higher wages!
Ugh!
Secretary Fessenden is in town.
He will leave for
Washington to-morrow.
During the day he has been in free consultation with the bankers, but the result of their conference has not been divulged as yet.
The steamer
Kate Dale, from
Fort Gaines, Mobile harbor, arrived at New Orleans on the 11th instant.
Admiral Farragut had prepared his fleet for action and issued orders to attack
Fort Morgan at eight o'clock A. M. the next day. It was to receive an enfilading fire from the fleet; and the land force in its rear have invested it wherever there was a foot of ground to stand upon.
The rebels have destroyed all the out-buildings of the fort, and also burned their only vessel, lying under its guns.
Everything about the fort indicated a determination to contest the battle till the last.
The channel to
Dog river was unobstructed.
The naval iron- clad force was confident of success.
At a late hour last night we heard that
Admiral Farragut had demand the unconditional surrender of the fort.
Admiral Farragut's demand for its surrender, made on Tuesday, was refused, the commander of the fort saying that he had six months provisions and fighting rations, and would resist to the last moment.
Before this,
General Granger's force in the rear had cut the communications of the fort.
The ram
Tennessee was in the attack on the fort.
Admiral Farragut was confident of reducing the fort.
The flag-ship
Hartford was badly injured.
We held all the channels to the bay.
The
Tecumseh settled almost immediately after the explosion of the torpedo.
There was no evidence of the torpedo from shock or noise, but the vessel sunk so rapidly that the berth deck was soon submerged, and two acting masters, who escaped from the top of the turret, stepped directly off into the water.
They were fired upon by musketry shots from
Fort Morgan while struggling in the water.
The pilot had a very narrow escape,
Captain Craven having caught him by the legs as he came out of the top of the turret into the water, and the two struggled some time together, when the pilot finally extricated himself from the
Captain and saved himself.
Miscellaneous.
There are twenty thousand wounded at the
Washington hospitals.
Suits for libel, to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, are pending against the Chicago
Times.
The New York
Tribune expresses the opinion that not one-third of the journals of that city are paying current expenses, and adds: "It is notoriously true that the capital invested here in newspapers is paying no profit whatever."
A Paris correspondent of a New York journal refers to the prevailing mania among the fashionable ladies of
Paris for coloring the hair
red. 
