March 21.—A battle occurred at Henderson’s Hill, La., between a portion of General A. J. Smith’s forces, under the command of General John A. Mower, and the rebels under General Richard Taylor, resulting in the defeat and rout of the latter, with a loss of five guns with caissons, four hundred horses, and about two hundred and fifty men, in killed, wounded, and missing. In a skirmish previous to the battle, Colonel II. B. Sargent, of General Banks’s staff, was wounded severely.—(Docs. 90 and 131.)
—Last night a body of rebels made an attack on the Union pickets, near Jenkins’s Island, South-Carolina, but were repulsed at every point by the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania regiment, Colonel Campbell, doing duty at that point. The rebels approached in eight large flatboats, and came in force, evidently with a view of cutting off the pickets. Another attempt to gain a foothold on the island this night was baffled by Captain Kness’s company of the Seventy-sixth, which fired several deadly volleys into the boats, and drove them off. No casualties occurred on the Union side in either affair.—The steamer Chesapeake, surrendered by the British authorities, arrived at Portland, Maine.
—The rebel steamer Clifton, formerly the United States gunboat of that name, while attempting to run the blockade at Sabine Pass, with over a thousand bales of cotton, got aground on the bar. She remained immovable, and was burned to prevent her from falling into the hands of the Nationals. — The rebel schooner Wild Pigeon was captured by the Hendrick Hudson.
