January 7.—I have just returned from paying a visit to Bienville Square; a very fine band of music plays there some two or three times a week, and makes it a very pleasant place of resort.
While there, we heard that the men of the Twenty-first Alabama Regiment, who have been for some time prisoners at Ship Island, are exchanged, and have returned home. I am told that they received shocking treatment at the hands of their jailer.
We have bad news from Tennessee; the particulars have not yet come, but it is believed that General Hood has met with a great repulse, and is retreating.
