December 18.
Lexington, Ky., was this day entered and occupied by a large force of rebel troops under General Forrest. Before capturing the town the rebels encountered a body of Union troops under the command of Colonel R. G. Ingersoll, Eleventh Illinois cavalry, but after a fight of three hours duration, in which the rebels lost forty of their number killed and wounded, the Unionists were forced to yield, leaving two pieces of artillery in the hands of the rebels.
Yesterday the steamer Mill Boy, while lying at Commerce, Miss., was fired into by a body of rebel cavalry, killing three persons. On arriving at Helena, Ark., the Mill Boy reported the fact, when the gunboat Juliet, and transport City Belle, with detachments of the Eleventh and Forty-seventh Indiana, were despatched to Commerce, where they arrived to-day, and burnt the town and plantations for five miles around.
