September 15.—Rear-Admiral D. D. Porter, writing to the Navy Department from Cairo, Ill., under this date, says:
“The river below seems quiet. There has been but one attempt made to obstruct commerce or transportation. A party of guerrillas attacked the gunboat Champion from behind the levee while she was convoying a body of troops below. The troops passed on safely, and the Champion stopped and fought the rebels until she made them retire, losing some of their men—report says fifty-seven. They have not been heard of since, excepting that they were falling back on Alexandria, General Herron having given them a chase with his division. As I came up, I overtook a part of the Marine Brigade under Colonel Curry. He reported to me that he had just captured at Bolivar three rebel paymasters with two million two hundred thousand dollars in confederate money to pay off the soldiers at Little Rock. He also captured the escort consisting of thirty-five men. This will not improve the dissatisfaction now existing General Price’s army, and the next news we hear will be that General Steele has possession of Little Rock. The gunboats pick up deserters every day, who say the rebels do not intend to fight in Arkansas, and that with proper steps she will be in the Union again in forty days. Lieutenant Bache captured a Colonel Mattock, who was on a conscription expedition, and it gave unusual satisfaction to all the people.”
—At Richmond, Va., three Irishwomen were charged with buying a load of mush-melons in the Second Market, with intent to retail them, and were fined five dollars, and the melons were ordered to be confiscated.
It is well the attention of the efficient clerk of the Second Market has been called to these creatures. They swarm through the market every morning, and buy up the major part of the fruit brought in by the country people, and take it to their houses to retail. As they understand the world, a jug of whisky and a half-dozen melons, and a dozen hard-boiled eggs, constitute a respectable store.—Richmond Examiner.
—M. Larue Harrison, commanding a force of National troops three hundred strong, attacked the combined forces of the rebels Coffee and Brown at Seneca Station, one mile west of Enterprise, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, Indian Territory, at ten o’clock this morning, and after an engagement of two hours, completely routed them, driving them southward in disorder. As the engagement occurred in a dense grape-vine thicket, it was impossible to estimate the loss of the rebels; five were ascertained to have been killed, among them a Captain W. R. Johnson. Colonel Harrison lost none, either in killed, wounded, or missing.—A magazine on James Island, S. C., belonging to the rebels, exploded, killing a lieutenant and six men.—President Lincoln issued a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus in certain cases.—(Doc. 171.)
