cover one another in every position, but they must 
have eventually yielded could, we have got round 
them here. The gun we dismounted the other day 
killed and wounded fourteen rebels. 
This fort has been occupied by the 1st battalion 
New Orleans artillery, the 8th and 30th Alabama 
regiments, the 10th and 14th Louisiana regiments, 
and the 13th and loth Georgia regiments. These 
troops were ordered to report at Howard’s Grove, 
four miles from Richmond, and left the fort at mid¬ 
night. A rear guard was left, who waited for our 
appearance, and then retreated in the greatest haste. 
Prof. Lowe’s balloon recounoissance discovered 
the rear guard at 0 A. M. to be four miles out 
General McClellan immediately ordered up the 
artillery and cavalry, and is pushing after them, at 
full speed. All our gunboats came up at 9 o’clock, 
and landed some marines at Gloucester, who raised 
the United States Hag amid cheers that could bo 
beard across the river. The boats all then left, and 
are now running up York river, shelling the banks 
on both sides. 
The large guns of the rebels were mostly colum- 
biads, taken from the Norfolk Navy Yard. Some of 
them had been recently mounted. The fortifications, 
although of the roughest character, were very for¬ 
midable, being surrounecd by deep gorges, almost 
impossible to pass. 
The retreat of the rebels seems to have been pre¬ 
cipitate. They commenced dismounting and carry- 
• ing back their guns to Williamsburg tour days ago. 
Wagons have been engaged in transporting thoir 
ammunition, provisions and camp equipage for over 
a week past. Their sick and wounded, numbering 
over 2,500, were sent to Richmond ten days ago. 
The rebel soldiers and negroes were at work on 
their entrenchments until two o’clock this morning, 
when the rear guard ordered the work to cease, and 
take up the march to Williamsburg. 
In the house of Mrs. Nelson, where General 
Magruder had slept the night before the evacuation, 
I found several open letters lying unfo Ided on a table. 
P Two were addressed to General McClellan, one to 
" the first Yankee who comes,” and one to “Abe Lin- 
coin. The following are the contents of one 
addressed to General McClellan: 
r “Gen. McClellan: —You will be surprised to hear 
of our departure at this stage of the game, leaving 
you in possession of this worthless town; but the 
3 Fact is, McClellan, we have other engagements to 
, attend to, and we can’t wait any longer." Our boys 
are getting sick of' this place, and the hospital like- 
’ wise, so good-bye for a little while. 
% G " i i m . n n t v r 
distant about, one hundred and sixteen miles north¬ 
west from Richmond. The county is situated in the 
north-eastern central part of Virginia, and has an 
area of nine hundred square miles. It is inter¬ 
sected in the south-east part by the Shenandoah 
river proper, and also drained by the north tork ot 
that river, and by Dry and North rivers, which rise 
within its limits. The county occupies part of the 
Great Valley, which is bounded on the south-east 
by the Blue Ridge, and on the north-west by the 
North Mountain, The soil is generally fertile. 
There are annually raised in the county over 700,- 
001) bushels of wheat and about 17,000 tuns of hay. 
Harrisonburg is the capital. The population in 
1800 amounted to 23,408, of whom only 2,387 were 
slaves. 
ing back on the part of the planters. They all fully 
appreciate the immense benefits which reviving 
trade will scatter over an almost bankrupt country. 
One thiug has forced itself upon the minds of those 
even who were unwilling at first to admit the fact- 
interference with private property which has not 
been included in the rebellion will not be made by 
Federal troops. All parties now feel secure in this 
respect.” _ 
Trade with New Orleans. 
Tue N. Y. Journal of Commerce says that Col¬ 
lector Barney is dhily receiving a host of applica¬ 
tions for the privilege of trading with New Orleans. 
He uniformly refers the applicants to Secretary 
Chase, who, up to this time, has not authorized thw 
issuing of a single clearance Irom this port to that 
destination. The two ship loads of ice which were 
permitted to leave Boston for New Orleans were 
solely for Ibe use of the army—mainly, it is sup¬ 
posed, for hospital purposes — and were considered 
sufficient to meet the immediate demands for that 
article. It is probable that no clearances for any 
kind of merchandise will be granted from this port 
or any Other to New Orleans until the new Col¬ 
lector lias arrived there, established himself m the 
Custom House, and made suitable preparations for 
discharging his duties. Even then, parties will 
Flag ot our Country, 
Boldly wave o'er ns ; 
May God in his mercy 
Help us defend 
Thy Stars and thy Stripes 
From all civil dishonor, 
Till o’er this broad Union 
Thy folds shall extend. 
ROCHESTER, N. Y., MAY 17, 1862, 
THE WAR’S PROGRESS 
fired at these two little steamers. On the contrary, 
everything seems to have been prepared before¬ 
hand for their quiet reception. The troops were 
immediately withdrawn, lest they might led dis¬ 
posed to demur; all the defenses on trie lake wera 
dismantled; the guns were thrown down without 
being injured; the steamboats, that could have 
gotten tip steam in an hour and been oil’, were 
burned; and the defenders were drawn oil’ to a dis¬ 
tant point. 
Never since the world began was there such a 
transaction —so dark, so mysterious, so altogether 
unaccountable. 
Terrible suspicions are afloat, but we hold it best 
not to give them a voice until something more defi¬ 
nite shall have reached us. 
“Richmond and Norfolk must be Defended.” 
—The Richmond correspondent of the Norfolk Day 
Boole, under date of the 27th, says: 
Norfolk and Richmond must be defended at all 
hazards, and it is high time your forces should be 
more than doubled. Your city and the navy yard 
are of equal importance with Richmond. Not only 
is Norfolk and the navy yard of inestimable import¬ 
ance to us, but the county of Princess Anne is indis¬ 
pensable in this crisis. 
The delegation from South Carolina and Georgia 
waited on the President Indore Congress adjourned, 
and urged him to withdraw the troops from those 
States, aud at all hazards defend Richmond and 
Norfolk; and I think they are coming. Indeed, you 
would have thought so, if you had seen, as I did, on 
Wednesday last, the South Carolina regiment, from 
Sullivan’s'Island, thirteen hundred strong, pass 
Chester, twelve miles from Richmond, and heard 
cheer after cheer resound through the forest for 
“ Old Virginia—she must and shall be free!” I con¬ 
versed with a South Carolina officer on the same 
trip, who said that Savannah may be surrendered, 
and Charleston, too, but Richmond never, lie said 
defend Richmond and Norfolk, cost what it may. 
President Davis lately made a speech at. Rocketts, 
to the soldiers passing to Yorktown. He said, as 
far as he was concerned, be would continue this war 
for twenty years, rather than one inch of Virginia 
soil should be surrendered, So let us hear no more 
about surrendering Virginia. 
A Year Ago. — The New Orleans Crescent of 
April 17, 1861, a little more than a year ago, has the 
following remarks upon a military scheme proposed 
in the New York Courier and Enquirer , which 
delusion as to the national 
official documents. The “on the Potomac” style 
would be to say that we have now, under Maj.- 
Gen. Ilallcck’s direct command, three great corps 
cl' arrate >, (each composed of its several divisions, 
they of their brigades, and they of their regiments,) 
under the commands, respectively, of Major-Gen¬ 
erals Grant, Buell, and Tope. 
There has, as yet. however, been no such simpli¬ 
fication of their titles. General Grant’s commaud 
is stilt known in the official papers as the “army of 
West Tennessee;’’ General Buell’s as the “army 
of the Ohio;” and General Pope’s as the “army of 
the Mississippi,” The internal arrangements of 
each of these armies remain unchanged by the con¬ 
solidation. Grant’s is as much a separate army as 
it was when it alone occupied the Tennessee valley; 
and Buell's, as when it was lying before Bowling 
Green. Each General conducts the affairs of his 
army, and reports to the Department commander, 
precisely as he did when Gen, J lulleek was at, St. 
Louis; and the only changes are that the three 
armies arc thrown together, and Gen. Ilalleck is 
present in person to exorcise the superintendence 
that has heretofore been committed to the telegraph. 
For the rest, there's a big army here. Suddenly 
settled down upon these hills, around Pittsburg 
Landing, are the white-walled houses of a city that 
has few superiors in population in the West. More 
than ihat, it would be improper to say: 1 hat much, 
rebel spies have far better opportunities of seeing 
daily and at their leisure, than they have of reading 
the Gazette. 
About Gen. Grant.— When I left Cincinnati, a 
few days ago, it was a prevailing impression that 
Gen. Grant, was under arrest, for mismanagement 
in the battle, or for neglect of duty before or after 
it. The belief was an entire mistake, for which 
there has been at no time any sort of foundation in 
fact. Gen. Grant is holding precisely the same 
commaud he. had before the battle of Pittsburg 
Landing, is at the head of the army, and has all the 
power and authority he has ever had. And besides, 
there is no probability, as it seems to me, that there 
will lie any very rigid investigation into the conduct 
of the battle. One chief point to which public cen¬ 
sure was directed, was the failure to follow up the 
victory of Monday by a vigorous pursuit. For that, 
it has been definitely ascertained, Gen. Ilalleck, and 
not Gen. Grant, is responsible. More need hardly 
be said to show that investigation is not particularly 
probable. 
Gen. Mitchell. All Right.— If there is still as 
much uneasiness on the subject at home as there 
was a week ago, it may be well enough to say that 
nobody need be alarmed about Gen. Mitchell. He 
has performed the most dashing and brilliant feat of 
the campaign, has taken a couple of railroads out 
there in the heart of Dixie, that he is running on 
his own accouut, has flanked Corinth perfectly, cut 
the rebels off from their seaboard communications, 
and made h imself ent irely safe, unless the headquar¬ 
ters here are very great ly deceived. He is in direct 
steamboat communication with llaUeok, as well as 
by telegraph, arid mails pass between them, with 
long reports and orders, almost daily. In short, his 
division can be converted at any time into the 
extreme left of our grand army menacing Beaure¬ 
gard at Corinth. 
shows the strong 
resources under which the South plunged into the 
rebellion: 
But we are really fearful Gen. Webb’s scheme 
will not succeed. To raise, equip, and feed an 
army of one hundred thousand men, and put it in 
motion, would require, at the lowest estimate, fif¬ 
teen million of dollars; and to keep the ranks hill, 
provide the means of irnusportiou, subsistence for 
men and horses, supply the wants created by casu¬ 
alties, and the numberless losses that would inevi¬ 
tably follow an active and desperately contested 
campaign, would demand au expenditure ol'at least 
seventy-five million of dollars per annum. 
And” if this grand army should be destroyed, and 
its property captured by the forces of the Confede¬ 
rate Stales—ami the chances are fifty to one that 
such would be the case —another army, involving 
the same expenditures, desiiued for the same fate, 
would have to be raised and provided for. We do 
not believe Lincoln's Government, can raise either 
the money or the men to practically enforce Gen. 
Webb’s magnificent enterprise, its credit being dole¬ 
fully below par now, and growing worse every day. 
No—wo of the Confederate States are not to have 
such good luck as Gen. Webb’s programme would 
give us. We will leave no chance at one hundred 
thousand abolitionists on land, where we can have 
a fair show for a death grapple with them. They 
are too cowardly for that. They may, and probably 
will, annoy us considerably at sea, where they have 
the advantage of us, but w'e will soon be as ready 
for them on the watery element as wo are now for 
ing sea, has become a sublime and mighty chorus, 
like the boom of the roiling breakers near a headland. 
We are fairly within the rebel works. We have passed 
their entrenchments and bastions in safety, with 
tumultuous joy and shouts of triumph. The rebel 
flag is nowhere to be seen. Everything is in the most 
profound and hopelessly inextricable confusion. 
Camp equipage is strewn around, and looks forlorn, 
dejected, miserable. No curl of smoke goes up from 
any tent to speak of hospitality and plenty. The 
ground is trodden and cut with broad wagon tracks, 
and littered with the tokens of the foe’s discomfiture 
and haste. Here is a drum that, to make it as ineffir 
cient as possible, lias been punctured with gaping 
holes all over its head. There are some picks and 
shovels, to which the sacred soil still clings in clods. 
To our right are vast piles of shot and shell. To 
our rear the second line of defenses stretches out¬ 
ward to the coast, like a chain of distant hills. 
These batteries, at the commencement of the siege, 
were said to have mounted one hundred and twenty 
guns, of formidable caliber. There are not half, 
probably not a quarter, of that number visible now. 
They are tew and far between, and it is said that all 
of them are spiked. Here, again, we come to a 
caisson that seems to have been struck by one of 
our shells, for it is shattered almost to pieces. The 
gun has been unlimbered and removed. Which¬ 
ever way we turn, we encounter relics of the departed 
enemy. They are such as are common to every 
tnili tary camp, except that they seem to have been 
disarranged, lor some unaccountable reason, in the 
night. Nothing lias been burned, apparently, and 
nothing lelt that could be conveniently removed. 
The flight seems to have been much hurried,but not 
accompanied with a panic. It was precipitate, and 
yet, 1 might almost say, deliberate. 
The New Y'ork Herald's correspondent, dating 
his letter “One mile beyond Yorktown, Sunday, 10 
A. M.,” says: 
About 3 o'clock this morning a building at York- 
town was fired, and 1'rof. Lowe and Gen. Ileintzel- 
man went up in a balloon, and found it was the 
storehouse at Yorktown wharf. At daylight they 
reported the forts empty. At 7 o’clock we occupied 
Yorktown, without a gun being fired. The guns of 
the enemy nearly all remained, spiked and dis¬ 
mounted. 
By the side of the river battery were large piles 
of ammunition, powder, balls aud shells. Eighty 
guns were in Yorktown, which is surrounded by a 
semicircle. The earthworks were all constructed to 
tridges from the soldiers about him. I tried to get 
him to stay with us over night, promising to take 
him home in my carriage early in the morning; but 
no. he said he preferred to walk three or four miles 
in the mild and rain, after dark, for he wanted to see 
his mother that night, llis father was lelt behind in 
a hospital.” 
Topography of Williamsburg.— A Washing¬ 
ton correspondent of the Baltimore Sun writes:—An 
examination of the great military map of Virginia, 
published by order of the State, shows that the 
Peninsula widens a little beyond Yorktown, and 
there is no stream above the rank of creek, until the 
Chickahominy is reached. Two roads extend from 
Yorktown to near Williamsburg, which place is 
described by persons here who know the country 
thoroughly, as on a dead level. Two roads run 
from Williamsburg to Richmond. One crosses the 
Chickahominy river near its confluence with the 
James river, and skirts the north bank of the latter, 
and numerous creeks. The other road, nr the 
northern route to Richmond, ryns parallel with 
York river to New Kent C. 11.. and thence two 
roads to Richmond; one runs straight west, crossing 
the Chickahominy at a point between swamps, the 
other runs more northerly, and is not cut by swamps 
or large streams. 
Rockingham County, Va.—G eneral Banks is 
steadily progressing towards Richmond. His com¬ 
mand at last accounts was in Rockingham county, 
