The War news.
Unbroken quiet still prevails on the military lines north of
James river.--
Butler has gone south, in ships, it is believed to attack
Wilmington.
The Yankee papers say he is in command of a large land force, which is to co-operate with the monitor fleet; but he has left his negroes behind.
The Eighteenth corps, now composed entirely of negroes, still holds Newmarket Heights and
Fort Harrison, and its sable pickets daily tramp within easy musket range of our lines.
On
General Pickett's lines, between the
James and
Appomattox, quiet also reigns.
At
Petersburg, however, the
Yankees are spiteful, and rarely permit a day to pass without treating us to a cannonade.
On Monday evening they shelled our left, near the
Appomattox, vigorously for two hours. On this occasion, we are glad to learn, no casualty occurred amongst our men.
We have nothing from the Stoneman raid on the Virginia and Tennessee railroad except the report, stated in a telegram received yesterday by a member of the Legislature from
Southwestern Virginia, that on last Sunday evening
General Breckinridge, having marched out from
Saltville, attacked the enemy at
Glade Spring, and gained a decided success, and that he renewed the attack early on Monday morning, compelling the enemy to retreat precipitately towards
East Tennessee.
This report is not confirmed by any official intelligence received at the War Department, but we see no reason to discredit it. If
General Breckinridge had collected such a force as would at all justify him in leaving his entrenchments, there is no doubt that he has done so; and it is just like
Stoneman to be cut down in mid career, as he was during his last raid in
Georgia.
From Hood's army.
We are again, and are likely to be for a week to come, dependent upon the
Yankee press for news from
Tennessee Unofficial telegrams from
Nashville state that they have at that place five thousand prisoners and forty-nine pieces of cannon, taken from
Hood during the battles of the 15th and 16th.
We are not in a position to disprove these statements, but we have repeatedly known quite as positive announcements to turn out absolutely false and unfounded.
Perhaps the telegraph is again to blame, as, from
Stanton's bulletin, it appears to have been in diminishing
Thomas's casualties from three thousand to three hundred.
It is noticeable that
Thomas sends no telegram on the 17th, and that the "unofficial" telegrams say nothing of what is going on, and do not tell us where
Hood is. It is not impossible that matters have taken a turn, at once unexpected and unpleasant to
Thomas, who, on the 16th, according to his own account, was driving our army down ten or a dozen turnpikes at once.
Perhaps
General Forrest, with his splendid cavalry, have turned up in the right place and put a sudden change upon the aspect of affairs.
He has a way of turning up unexpectedly, and always make his presence felt.
He had had abundant time to rejoin
Hood, even though he were at
Murfreesboro' when the fight began; and we think there is little doubt he has done so. This assurance, and the knowledge of the weight of
Forrest's sword and presence, together with the certain conviction that
Thomas would have telegraphed
Stanton had he had anything agreeable to communicate, cause us still to hope that
General Hood's condition is by no means hopeless; and that his army is not, as the enemy express the hope, in danger of being "crushed."
