The war news.
The most important news from the lines below
Richmond is, that on Sunday night the enemy transferred a heavy body of troops to the south side.
Ten pieces of cannon went along with this column.
To judge by past experience, this move pretends some offensive operation against our right, on the south of the town of
Petersburg; or it is a feint, designed to induce us to weaken our line fronting.
Fort Harrison. It has been
Grant's practice only to move when about to attack.
He moves and strikes without delay.
But, twenty-four hours having already elapsed since this last movement, and nothing having come of it, it may be he has tired of his old strategy and is about to try something new. It is also possible the movement was intended to meet some apprehended attack from us; for, be it known, since the recent occasion on which our troops swooped down on
Kantz and
Birney, and drove them from the
Charles City road to
Fort Harrison, the
Yankees have not had an easy moment, so great is their dread of a repetition of the movement.
This we know from Yankee deserters, and also from Yankee pickets, who do not hesitate to declare their apprehensions.
The complete and formidable character of our fortifications, running from a point opposite.
Fort Harrison north to the
Charles City road, may have something to do with
Grant's withdrawing forces from their front.
He assailed them repeatedly and desperately last Thursday, and must feel convinced they are impregnable.
This being the case, any advance for
Richmond on the north side of the
James must be by some route avoiding these works, which route can only be found by making a circuit of twenty-five miles. He must go back to
New Market, and thence strike northeast across
White Oak swamp to the
Williamsburg road, at Bottom's bridge.
He is hardly prepared to make this trip.
As everything concerning the
Yankees and their operations immediately in front of this city must be interesting to our readers, we may state that they have at length completed to their satisfaction the defences of
Fort Harrison, and have thrown into it a garrison of eight hundred men. A number of guns have been mounted on the fort in embrasures, but they have not yet opened upon our lines.
Every morning at sunrise they are discharged, for the purpose of keeping them in order and ready for use. Our men in the trenches, some five hundred yards distant, watch the movements of the enemy in this fort with great interest, especially the firing of the morning guns.
It was reported yesterday morning that the enemy, on Sunday night, attempted to throw a pontoon bridge from Cox. wharf to the south side of the
James, but were driven off by shells from our gunboats.
Cox wharf is immediately this side of
Dutch gap, and it is likely the enemy would desire very much to put a column across the river at this point, as by so doing they would menage the left and rear of the Howlett Picuse battery.
We have no fear they will succeed in such an undertaking were they to attempt it. We have gunboats and other things which are all- sufficient to keep the waters clear between
Dutch gap and
Richmond.
Butler's canal is believed to be progressing slowly.
He has put to work in it some prisoners recently taken from us; in retaliation, he says, for our putting negro captives upon our fortifications.
We think he will find our men neither willing nor efficient allies.
From the Valley.
Passengers by last night's train from
Staunton report that information had reached there of a fight which had occurred at Sickley's shop, beyond
Fisher's hill.
A detachment of our men, having gone down the
Valley to that point, were attacked by the
Yankees, who, supposing that it was only a cavalry force, attacked them with some impetuosity.
The horsemen fell back, and the enemy following, soon fell in with our infantry, who fell upon them with a vengeance, killing and capturing a very large number.
It is said that out of one whole brigade of Yankees only
twelve men were left.
Nothing further concerning the two corps which had crossed the mountain at
Chester gap.
Mosey on the grand round.
Mosby is again on the grand round.
Ten days ago he struck the enemy at
Salem, on the Manassas Gap railroad, whipping the
Yankee troops, capturing their baggage and trains, and breaking up their railroad-building operations.--The next we hear of him is through the following official dispatch, from which it appears he has suddenly manifested himself at
Duffield, on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad.
We give the dispatch:
"On the 14th instant
Colonel Mosby struck the Baltimore and Ohio railroad at
Duffield, and destroyed a United States mail train, consisting of a locomotive and ten cars, and securing twenty prisoners and fifteen horses.
"Among the prisoners are two paymasters, with one hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars in Government funds.
Duffield is a station on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, eight miles west of
Harper's Ferry.
Northern papers of the 15th instant state the funds captured to be over two hundred thousand dollars.
The news from
Georgia is cheering.--
Hood's success so far has been complete.
Sherman's communications are altogether destroyed.
They are said to have no stock to haul commissaries or artillery, and no railroad.
Sherman is beyond the
Chattahoochee, cut off from his main army.
Thomas is in command at
Atlanta, and, it is said, has only one corps.
There are no cavalry at
Atlanta whatever.
Our pickets are within a mile of
Atlanta, and capture or shoot every Yankee who shows his head.
The evacuation of
Atlanta by
Sherman is confidently expected.
Late news from
Tennessee says that, on Thursday last, a steamer going from
Memphis to
Cincinnati was fired into by our troops when near
Island No.37 from the
Missouri side.
The engineer, a dock hand, and several horses, were killed.
The
Yankees estimate the force posted along the river and interfering with their commerce at two thousand, and say that they are stragglers from
Price's army.--
Price would hardly have stragglers now; but if the
Yankee account be true, they are straggling to some purpose.
