From Norfolk.
Paroled prisoners — a schooner abandoned--fifteen thousand Dollars sunk with her — Commercial meeting — Portsmouth Baptist Association, &c.[special Correspondence of the Dispatch.]
Norfolk, Oct. 2d, 1861.
Fourteen of the Confederate soldiers who were taken prisoners at Rich Mountain, and who have been released on parole, arrived here last evening.
They arrived at Old Point yesterday from Baltimore, having reached that city via Columbus, Ohio, on Monday.
Several of these brave men are badly wounded, some five or six being compelled to use crutches.
One of them, whose name is John A. Taylor, lost his right leg, which was amputated close to the hip joint.
His left leg was terribly mangled, but will probably be saved.
I learn that he fought with most desperate and reckless bravery at one of the guns of the gallant Captain Delagnel.
Taylor states that there were about a dozen of his comrades who had their legs amputated, and that all have died.
These released prisoners bring very important news from Northwestern Virginia, which I send you herewith.
[Published in yesterday's Dispatch.]
The following is a list of the prisoners above mentioned:
Captain C. H. Irving, H. D. Crockett, David Comfort, N. C. Reid, A. L. Farley, 20th Virginia Regiment; John A. Taylor, Amos Curry, E. H. Crazy, J. Midden, of the Lee Battery; W. H. Allen, D. O. Young, 1st Georgia Regiment; Thomas Jauntry, 23d Virginia; Janus Lane, 27th Virginia.
A Baltimore schooner, the Florida, Captain Terrell, from Saint Domingo, and bound to Baltimore, with a cargo of mahogany, &c., was abandoned at sea and sunk on Friday last, about thirty miles North of Cape Hatteras.
She had on board a considerable amount of specie, said to have been $15,000, which was lost with the vessel and cargo.
The captain, owner, and crew were saved in the boats, and got ashore at the Washwoods, on the coast, not very far South of Cape Henry.
A meeting of the business men of Portsmouth was held Monday evening for the purpose of choosing delegates to the Commercial Convention to be held at Macon, Ga., and fifty were appointed.
The annual session of the Virginia Portsmouth Baptist Association commences to-day in the Freemason Street Baptist Church, of this city.
The ladies connected with the Cumberland Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of this city, are engaged in making five hundred neat and comfortable coverlets for the soldiers, who will find them specially useful in the winter time.
A very large number will be furnished by the ladies of our city, very many of whom are still hard at work on various articles intended for the use of the troops in camp in cold weather. 