May 24.—Austin, Mississippi, was visited and burned by the forces under General Ellet, commanding the ram fleet in the department of the Mississippi.—(Doc. 202.)
—A wagon-train, laden with commissary stores, with an escort of thirty colored troops, under the command of a white officer, were captured near Shawnee Creek, Kansas, by a gang of rebel guerrillas.—Leavenworth Conservative.
— The schooner Joe Planner was captured while trying to run the blockade of Mobile, Ala., by the gunboat Pembina.—Major-Generals A. P. Hill and R. S. Ewell, of the rebel army, were appointed Lieutenant-Generals. — General Curtis relinquished the command of the Department of the West of the army of the United States, and General Schofield assumed it, and issued orders to that effect.
—Considerable excitement existed in England regarding the depredations of the rebel privateer Alabama—the cargoes of three of the vessels captured and destroyed by her on the South American coast being British property.
