The War News.
Everything continues quiet in front of
Petersburg.
The enemy, after fiercely shelling the city on Monday, throwing missiles at times at the rate of one hundred per hour, suddenly calmed down on Tuesday, and during the whole day not a single shell annoyed the inhabitants.
The
Express describes the scene after nightfall on Monday as "somewhat dangerous to behold, though in the highest degree attractive, and approaching the sublime." We think that is a sort of "attraction" possessing few charms, but rather calculated to create a nervous desire to get away from it by the earliest opportunity. "Away in the distance," continues the
Express, "could be seen mortar shells ascending and descending in every direction, thicker far than ever shooting meteors showed themselves.
Some of them seemed to ascend almost to the very regions of the stars, and, gracefully curving, would descend with inconceivable rapidity, their blazing fuses emitting a brilliant light.
Others, less ambitions, would shoot up an hundred or two feet and quickly disappear below the horizon, lighting the heavens with the blase of their explosions."
All of which makes a very pretty picture on canvas or paper, but rather more pleasing in the imagination than in the reality.
It is gratifying to state that during all this shelling no personal injury was sustained, and the damage to property was comparatively slight.
An impression has got abroad that the enemy is weakening his force on the Weldon railroad; and some have gone so far as to assert that he is preparing to abandon his position altogether.
It is hardly necessary to state that there is no foundation whatever for this belief.
His pickets still occupy the same position below
Petersburg, and are daily to be seen a short distance this side of Reams' station.
The prospect is that the
Yankees will hold the railroad until they are ejected by
General Lee's veterans.
A brigade of Yankee cavalry is encamped at
Wyatt's crossing, two miles north of
Reams's, and foraging parties are sent out daily.
On Tuesday, seven men, who were out on one of these expeditions, were captured by the Ninth Virginia cavalry.
Hancock bids fair to outstrip all his coadjutors in the accomplishment of lying.
In his official report of the battle on Thursday, while he admits a defeat, he puts down his loss at twelve to fifteen hundred!
Now, we know that over two thousand prisoners have been received here as the fruits of that engagement, and we have undoubted authority for saying that it took the. Yankee details, under flag of truce, two days to complete the burial of their dead.
Their losses on that occasion certainly number several thousand; but exactly how many we shall probably never know.
Stanton, taking his cue from
Hancock, asserts that the rebels have lost ten thousand men on the Weldon railroad in the last two weeks. These enormous falsehoods were doubtless made up with a view to affect the action of the Chicago Convention.
A letter from a private soldier "in the trenches" in front of
Petersburg says that Order 65 is producing a wholesome effect upon the
Yankee troops Deserters are daily coming in and claiming the privileges guaranteed.
A report comes to us by way of
Bristol and
Lynchburg that
Wheeler has destroyed the
Loudon bridge over the
Tennessee river, and succeeded in capturing a large number of prisoners.
The Northern Border.
A Confederate officer, just from
Staunton, says that the report was current there when he left that
General Early gained a complete victory over the enemy on Saturday last near
Shepherdstown; but as yet it lacks official confirmation.
