The accounts from New Orleans leave no room to doubt that
Banks's repulse at
Port Hudson was severe and disheartening.
The divisions which did the fighting were
Sherman's and
Augur's. The Northern papers claim that the rebels were driven into their entrenchments after nine hours fighting.--The steamer
Natchez arrived at
Mobile last Monday from New Orleans with 230 paroled prisoners.
By this arrival the Mobile papers have received some information from reliable sources which the New Orleans papers are not allowed to publish.
The Federal loss was 3,000.
Among the wounded were
Gen. Stafford shot through both legs;
Gens. Sherman,
Neal Dow, (of
Maine Liquor law fame,) and
Chapin, and
Nickerson.
The negro regiments, to use the language of a message sent to New Orleans by
Gen. Sherman, were "massacred."
Sherman has since arrived in that city.
The fight was under his direction,
Banks not having arrived with the main body.
This is the second premature attack of that General, and his second thrashing.
The stampede of the
Federals was led off by the 15th Connecticut and 26th New Hampshire.
This fight is stated by the New Orleans papers to have taken place on the 27th, but it is doubtless the battle of the 23d, which the
Northern papers characterize as "a successful reconnaissance."
Gen. Banks was on board a steamer at Bayon Sara on the 23d,
en route to
Port Hudson.
Singular to say, there is not a line in the New Orleans papers of Sunday about the battle, except this little paragraph from the
Delta:
"The funeral of
Lieut. Wroluowski,
topographical engineer on
Gen. Weitzel's staff, killed in the recent engagement before
Port Hudson, will take place this afternoon."
