December 8.—The American Bible Society has done a great work for the army and navy. It has distributed, in these two branches of the national service, about half a million copies of the Scriptures, mostly of the New Testament, and is now issuing seven thousand copies a day. Every man in the volunteer regiments, who would receive one, has been furnished with a very neat and portable copy of the New Testament; and the same good work is to be done for the other regiments that may yet volunteer in the service of their country to the end of the war. So noble an object is worthy of everybody’s sympathy and cooperation.
—The Second regiment of Ohio Volunteers, under command of Colonel L. A. Harris, left their camp this morning for Elizabethtown, forty-two miles south of Louisville, on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the rendezvous of the troops in Western and Southern Kentucky.
—The schooner E. Waterman, loaded with salt, provisions, coffee, and lend, and munitions of war, was captured off Savannah, Ga., by the steamer Augusta,—N. Y. Herald, Dec. 20.
—Yesterday afternoon a rebel force, consisting of a battery of six pieces, and about four hundred Infantry and two hundred Cavalry, made their appearance at Dam No. 5, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, near Williamsport, Md., and commenced throwing shell and shot it the Dam and houses on the Maryland shore, burning a barn, and riddling all the houses within range, continuing the fire until dusk.
The only Union force there to oppose them, was a company of the Massachusetts Thirteenth, on picket duty, and an unarmed Illinois regiment. As the Massachusetts company was armed with smooth-bore muskets their fire was not effective at that distance.
Early this morning they resumed the fire with artillery and small arms, and, emboldened by the slight resistance met with yesterday, cane down to the very brink of the river, and exposed themselves without fear. During the night, Colonel Leonard had despatched a canal boat from Williamsport and another company of his regiment, armed with Enfield rifles, who were concealed as skirmishers along the Maryland shore. On the renewal of the attack the riflemen opened fire from their concealment, and in a short time the rebel artillerists were compelled to abandon their battery in hot haste, their infantry and cavalry leaving the ground about the same time.
For the want of a sufficient infantry force and battery to protect his movements, Colonel Leonard was compelled to let the rebel guns remain in position, and after nightfall the rebels returned and took them off.—(Doc. 217.)
—Port Royal Island, S. C., on which the town of Beaufort is situated, was taken possession of by the Union forces on the 6th inst., but neither the island nor the town were fully occupied till to-day, when a reconnoissance in force, consisting of three hundred of the Fiftieth Pennsylvania regiment, three hundred of the “Roundheads,” and half of Hamilton’s Battery, all under command of General Stevens, drove the enemy completely from the island, they having to cross Port Royal Ferry, and taking up a position on the main land. The Union pickets were immediately extended so as to defend the town of Beaufort and the entire island of Port Royal.—N. T. Tribune.
