November 12.—A very spirited skirmish with the rebels occurred at a point about ten miles from the Cumberland Gap, in Virginia. A forage train of twenty-one wagons had been sent out with a guard of twenty-eight men. The wagons were loaded, and started for the Gap, with no appearance of danger, when suddenly a party of seventy guerrillas rushed from a convenient ambush, overpowering the guard, and compelling a surrender. The officers’ clothing was immediately transferred to rebel backs, and their wallets appropriated. Ten minutes after the capture, Colonel Lemert, commanding the forces at the Gap, appeared in a bend of the road. Whilst the rebels were approaching, Colonel Lemert immediately led the charge with ten men of the Fourth battalion Ohio volunteer cavalry. A fierce hand-to-hand sabre-fight occurred for a few minutes, when the rebels left the field. The train and prisoners were recaptured, eleven of the enemy captured, two killed and four wounded, and some small arms and horses taken. An exciting chase of ten miles failed to overtake the fleeing rebels.
—Major-General Dabney H. Maury, in command of the rebel forces at Mobile, Ala., sent the following to Adjutant-General Cooper, at the war department at Richmond, Va.:
“The following despatch from Tunica, Miss., was received yesterday, dated tenth instant, from Colonel Harry Maury, commanding Fifteenth cavalry regiment: ‘We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, three hundred strong, and drove them to their iron-clads with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon-trains and twenty-five prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only three wounded of ours.'”—Two Bridges and trestlework on the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad at Caligula, near Lynnville, Tenn., were destroyed by a party of rebel cavalry under the command of the partisan Roddy.—A cannonading between the rebel batteries on Lookout Mountain and the Union forces at Moccasin Point, took place today.
—In the rebel Senate, in session at Richmond, Va., Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, offered the resolution:
“Resolved, That in the present condition of the country, Congress ought, with the least practicable delay, to enact the following:
“1. To declare every white male person residing in the confederate States, and capable of bearing arms, to be in the military service of the country.
“2. To repeal all laws authorizing substitutes or granting exemptions.
“3. To authorize the President to issue his proclamation requiring all male persons claiming and receiving foreign protection to make their election within sixty days, to take up arms or quit the country.
“4. To detail from those in the military service such only as are absolutely needed in civil pursuits, having reference in making such details to competency alone.
“5. To levy a direct tax of —— per cent on every kind of property, according to its value in confederate notes, including the notes themselves.
“6. To make confederate notes a legal tender in payment of debts, after the expiration of six months.
“7. To prohibit the buying and selling of gold and silver coin, or the notes on banks in the United States, or United States Treasury notes, during the war, under heavy penalties, or, in lieu thereof, to prohibit ‘running the blockade’ by individuals, under pain of forfeiture of the goods brought in, and imprisonment during the war.
“8. Declare these laws war measures, and make those who violate them amenable to the military courts.”
—The City Council of Richmond, Va., made an appropriation of sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of a family residence for General Robert E. Lee.
