July 12.—The Senate of the United States adopted the Confiscation Bill as it passed in the House of Representatives yesterday, by a vote of twenty-seven to thirteen.—The advance of Gen. Curtis’s army under General Washburn reached Helena, Ark., at nine o’clock this morning, having left Clarendon, on the White River, yesterday, at six A.M., and made a forced march of sixty-five miles in a day and a night.
Gen. Curtis left Batesville on the twenty-fourth ult. with twenty days’ rations, and after a halt of five days at Jacksonport, to concentrate the forces on his outposts, he took up his line of march, and his entire command are now en route for Helena.
From eight to twelve hundred rebels, under Matlock, who were on his front, fired on forage trains from canebrakes, and barricaded all the roads leading southward with trees felled by negroes, and placed every conceivable obstacle in the way of his men, but he overcame them all.
Gen. Washburn had a number of skirmishes on the route, in all of which the rebels were whipped, and with considerable loss to them, though with few casualties to the National troops.
—A fight took place at Lebanon, Ky., between a small body of Union troops, under the command of Colonel Johnson, and a force of rebel cavalry under John Morgan, resulting in the defeat of the Unionists and the capture of the town by the rebels.—(Doc. 87.)
—Large and enthusiastic meetings, for the purpose of promoting enlistments into the army under the call of President Lincoln for three hundred thousand additional troops, were this day held at Boston, Cambridge, Roxbury, Brookline, Somerville, Maiden, Springfield, and West-Cambridge, Mass., and at Portland, Maine. Speeches by distinguished and prominent citizens were made in each place. In several of the towns large sums of money were collected for the purpose of paying extra bounties to the volunteers.
—President Lincoln received the Senators and Representatives of the slaveholding Border States at the Presidential mansion, and addressed them on the subject of emancipation.
—General Smith, of the rebel army, issued an address to the forces under his command at Vicksburgh, Miss., thanking them for their bravery in resisting the attack made by the Union forces on the city.—The rebel General Albert Pike, in command of Fort McCulloch, Indian Territory, forwarded his “unconditional and absolute” resignation to Jeff Davis.
—The British schooner Julia, of Digby, N. S., captured by the National gunboat Kittatinny in Barrataria Creek, La., and the schooner Uncle Mose, captured by the gunboat Tahoma on the coast of Campeachy, arrived at Key West, Fla.— Colonel Thomas Cass, of the Ninth Massachusetts regiment, died at Boston from the effects of wounds received before Richmond.
—Fairmont, Missouri, was this day surprised by a band of bushwhackers, who plundered the town and carried off several of its inhabitants.
—The New-Orleans (La.) Delta, of this date, speaking of the sanitary condition of that city, said:
In the memory of the “oldest inhabitant,” our city was never more healthy at this season of the year. For this great blessing we are greatly indebted to Gen. Butler’s idea of relieving the poor, and at the same time getting said poor to clean up the streets. The order was intrusted to Gen. Shepley, who very judiciously selected Col. T. B. Thorpe to superintend the distribution of the charity of the Government, and see that the thousand laborers, the recipients, did their duty. The result is, that our city is a model of cleanliness.
—A fight took place at Culpepcr, Va., between a body of Union troops, under the command of Gen. Hatch, and a force of rebel cavalry, in which the rebels were routed, having had one killed, five wounded, and leaving eleven prisoners in the hands of the Unionists.
—The Unionists of North-Alabama having been much abused and persecuted by the rebels in that region, a body of Union troops, under the command of Colonel Streight, Fifty-first Indiana, were sent to relieve and protect them.—(Doc. 86.)
—The Union ram Switzerland, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Ellet, made a reconnoissance up the Yazoo River, for the purpose of ascertaining if the rebels had erected any breastworks along its banks.
