After our army had taken possession of Jackson, strong detachments of troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were sent out on all the railroads diverging from the city, with orders to tear up the track, destroy the bridges, culverts, dépôts, and water-tanks within a radius of fifteen miles. As I close this letter, the artillery of some of our advanced troops is heard in the distance. The rebels had nearly completed the railroad bridge, destroyed by our troops in May last, across the Pear' River, near Jackson. This also is to be destroyed. Nearly every eligible or flat piece of land in and around Jacksor nas been taken as rebel burial-grounds. From the thousands of graves your correspondent saw in his inspection of the city, the inference is, that the mortality in the rebel army from May until our troops repos. sessed the city must have been very large. Some of the graves are graced with marble slabs; but the majority had plain head-boards, giving the age and date of the death of the deceased. Rebel prisoners by hundreds, from Johnston's fugitive army, are coming in and giving themselves up as prisoners of war. They state their belief that the Confederacy is a failure, and the rebel leaders a clique of ambitious, intriguing knaves. They declare that the war was inaugurated by a few selfish politicians, and the people were dragged into it. They state that the Union sentiment is in the minds of many of the people of the South; but they dare not express it, and are biding their time, hoping and praying they may soon be liberated from the heavy yoke of Jefferson Davis and his followers. Our trophies by the evacuation are not numerous. The most important item is that of the cotton used in the rebel fortifications, and some miscellaneous lots in and near the city; of this, I learn there are about three thousand bales, most of it in good order and ready for shipment northward. The rebels took all their cannon, of which they had fifty pieces, with the exception of one ten-inch ship's columbiad, which was too weighty an incumbrance to a flying army. In addition to the cotton, we obtained large quantities of artillery and musket ammunition The latter was of first quality, of English and Austrian manufacture. Among the different qualities of the small ammunition was the expan sive, explosive Minie, and the ordinary buck and ball cartridges. The artillery ammunition was nearly all manufactured at the Augusta (Ga.) arsenal. We captured some twenty or thirty railroad cars and other railroad equipments of no present use to the army, as the railroad, railroad bridges, culverts, water-tanks, and dépôts, have all been destroyed over an area of fifteen miles from Jackson. The damage thus done, will amount to at least two millions of dollars, and should we evacuate the place the rebels could not rebuild the roads destroyed at any price, as the material is not in the Confederacy. From May 1st up to the capture of Jackson, General Grant's army has been unremittingly at work. They have fought, within that time, seven hotlycontested battles, at the cost of many a gallant life, but with twofold victory to our arms. The trophies of these battles, in arms and prisoners, are counted by thousands; but the crowning event of the campaign is the opening of the Mississippi River. The rebel army of the West has been scattered to the winds, and those not killed or captured are fleeing with sheer fright from before our army of veterans. For the present, campaigning in Mississippi is ended. CHAPTER XLIII. GENERAL GRANT AT VICKSBURG, BUT NOT IDLE. GENERAL GRANT had remained behind at Vicksburg when General Sherman advanced, but he was not idle. He held constant communication with his various commands, and organized certain expeditions, the more effectually to clear the entire department of all vestige of rebel rule. The following dispatch explains how General Grant was employed: VICKSBURG, Miss., July 12, 1863. Major-General HALLECK, General-in-Chief: General Sherman has Jackson invested from Pearl River on the north to the river on the south. This has cut off many hundred cars from the Confederacy. Sherman says he has forces enough, and feels no apprehension about the result. Finding that Yazoo City was being fortified, I sent General Herron there with his Division. He captured several hundred prisoners and one steamboat. Five pieces of heavy artillery and all the public stores fell into our hands. The enemy burned three steamboats on the approach of the gunboats. The De Kalb was blown up and sunk in fifteen feet of water by the explosion of a torpedo. Finding that the enemy were crossing cattle for the rebel army at Natchez, and were said to have several thousand there, I have sent steamboats and troops to collect them and destroy all boats and means for making U. S. GRANT, Major-General. more. Of the Yazoo City expedition, Admiral Porter reports as follows. UNITED STATES MISSISSIPPI SQUADRON, Hon. GIDEON WELLES: } SIR:-Hearing that General Johnston was fortifying Yazoo City with heavy guns, and gathering troops there for the purpose of obtaining supplies for his army from the Yazoo country; also that the remainder of the enemy's best transports were then showing a possibility of his attempt to escape, Major-General Grant and myself determined to send a naval and military expedition up there to capture them. The Baron De Kalb, New National, Kenwood, and Signal, were dispatched, under command of Lieutenant John G. Walker, with a force of troops numbering five thousand, under command of Major-General Frank J. Herron. Pushing up to the city, the Baron De Kalb engaged the batteries, which were all prepared to receive her, and after finding out their strength dropped back to notify General Herron, who immediately landed his men, and the army and navy made a combined attack on the enemy's works. The rebels soon fled, leaving every thing in our possession, and set fire to four of their finest steamers that ran on the Mississippi River in times past. The army pursued the enemy and captured their rear guard of twe hundred and sixty men, and at last accounts were taking more prisoners. Six heavy guns and one vessel, formerly a gunboat, fell into our hands, and all the munitions of war. Unfortunately, while the Baron De Kalb was moving slowly along she ran foul of a torpedo, which exploded and sunk her. There was no sign of any thing of the kind to be seen. While she was going down another exploded under her stern. The water is rising fast in the Yazoo, and we can do nothing more than get the guns out of her and then get her into deep water, where she will be undisturbed until we are able to raise her. The officers and men lost every thing. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Acting Rear-Admiral Commanding Mississippi Squadron. The Red River and Natchez expedition may be con sidered as part and parcel of one and the same operation, the success of which is reported by Admiral Porter and General Grant as follows: FLAG-SHIP BLACK HAWK, Hon. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy: } SIR-I have the honor to inform you that the expedition I sent into the Red River region proved very successful. Ascending the Black and Tensas Rivers, running parallel with the Mississippi, LieutenantCommander Selfridge made the head of navigation-Tensas Lake and Bayon Macon-thirty miles above Vicksburg, and within five or six miles of the Mississippi River. The enemy were taken completely by surprise, not expecting such a force in such a quarter. The rebels who have ascended to that region will be obliged to move further back from the river, if not go away altogether. Lieutenant-Commander Selfridge divided his forces on finding that the transports which had been carrying stores to Walker's army had escaped up some of the narrow streams. He sent the Manitou and Rattler up the Little Red River—a small tributary of the Black-and the Forest Rose and Petrel up the Tensas. The night was dark and it was raining very hard. The Manitou and Rattler succeeded in capturing the rebel steamer Louisville, one of the largest and perhaps the best steamer in the Western waters. Up the Tensas, or one of its tributaries, the Forest Rose and Petrel captured the steamer Elmira, loaded with stores, sugar, and rum, for the rebel army. Finding that the steamers which had conveyed General Walker's army had returned up the Wachita, the expedition started up that river, and came suddenly upon two rebel steamers; but the rebels set them on fire, and they were consumed so rapidly that their names could not be ascertained. One steamer, loaded with ammunition, escaped above the fort at Harrisonburg, which is a very strong work, and unassailable with wooden gunboats. It is on an elevation over one hundred feet high, which elevation covers what water batteries of heavy guns there are. Lieutenant-Commander Selfridge was fortunate enough, however, to hear of a large quantity of ammunition that had lately been hauled from Natchez, and deposited at or near Trinity, nearly due west of Natchez, and from whence stores, provisions, cattle, guns and ammunition are transported. He captured fifteen thousand rounds of smooth-bore ammunition, ten thousand rounds of Enfield rifle, and two hundred and twenty-four rounds of fixed ammunition for guns, a rifle thirty-pounder Parrott gun-carriage, fifty-two hogsheads of sugar, ten puncheons of rum, nine barrels of flour, and fifty barrels of salt-all belonging to the Confederate government. At the same time they heard of a large |