Following the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with day by day writings of the time, currently 1863.

August 13.—A gunboat reconnoissance from Clarendon, up the White River, Ark., was made by the steamers Lexington, Cricket, and Mariner, under the command of Captain Bodie. They returned in the evening, bringing as prizes the steamers Tom Suggs and Kaskaskia. They also destroyed two mills used by the rebel army for grinding corn, and a pontoon-bridge across the Little Red River. The casualties on the Union side were five men wounded, two of whom died.

—An expedition under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips, of the Ninth Illinois infantry, left La Grange, Tennessee, for Central Mississippi.—Major-general Burnside issued an order regulating the employment and subsistence of negro laborers.

—This night a party of rebel cavalry made a descent upon a signal station, located on Water Mountain, near Warrenton, Va., capturing every thing except the officers and one glass. Sixteen horses, several wagons, the camp equipage, together with a number of telescopes, foil into the hands of the rebels. The officers had sufficient warning to enable them to escape before the enemy reached them, but their private property was lost.—The first full regiment of colored men, raised in Pennsylvania, left Philadelphia by steamer for Morris Island, S. C., to reenforce the army under General Gillmore.

—Colonel Catherwood, commanding the Sixth Missouri cavalry, sent the following despatch to headquarters, from his camp at Pineville, Mo.:

“Colonel Coffee attacked me to-day, and was completely routed, with over thirty killed and wounded. We have a large number of prisoners, all his ammunition wagons, commissary stores, arms, horses, cattle, etc. We scattered all his force except two hundred with himself. Our force is following him closely. My horses are so worn down that they cannot move further until rested. Colonel Hirsch, just in, reports that he killed thirty-five and wounded a large number.”

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