July 5.—C. M. Irvin, in behalf of the citizens of Lee County, Va., informed the rebel Secretary of War that Gen. Mercer, of the rebel army, had issued an order impressing twenty percent of the male slaves throughout the State, and inquired if he was authorized so to do by the War Department. In reply to Mr. Irvin, the rebel Secretary of War informed him that Gen. Mercer had not communicated with his department in reference to impressment of slaves, nor had any authority to make such impressment been granted.
—Gen. Thompson, of the rebel army, issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Panola and De Soto Counties, Miss., calling upon them to do the “watching and picketing duty which their knowledge of the country peculiarly fitted them for.”— (Doc. 85.)
—The bombardment of Vicksburgh was reopened at about eight o’clock on the evening of this day. The Union fleet of gunboats and mortar-vessels threw shot and shell into the city for an hour.
—The Governors of Indiana, Illinois, Vermont, and Rhode Island issued proclamations calling upon the citizens of those States for their quotas of troops, under the call of President Lincoln for three hundred thousand men.
