June 5, 1863, The New York Herald
Unofficial reports received in Washington yesterday, which are considered entirely reliable, state that up to the 31st ult. no material change in the affairs at Vicksburg had occurred, and that no fighting had taken place for several days. A despatch from Washington yesterday also sates that a rebel officer informed the bearer of a flag of truce, on Wednesday last (on the Rappahannock, we presume), that Gen. Grant had tried to take every point of the rebel defences and had been repulsed with great loss at each; and further, that he had fallen back upon the line of the Big Black river and was fortifying himself there. Reports from Cincinnati to the 30th ult., direct from Vicksburg, say that for several days previous everything was quiet on the lines; that earthworks were then being thrown up to protect our troops, and mines were being constructed to blow up some of the rebel forts which cannot be approached by any other means. The idea of carrying Vicksburg by storm, according to this statement, appears to be abandoned, and slower operations must be looked for. A despatch from Jackson, Miss., to Richmond, dated the 1st of June, says that General Grant had demanded the surrender of General Pemberton, which was peremptorily refused. No news from that quarter appears, however, in the Richmond papers of yesterday.
Scouting parties sent out from Murfreesboro have failed to find any of the enemy on the left or rear of Gen. Rosecrans’ position. It is reported, apparently on good authority, that there are at Tullahoma not more than two regiments, and that the enemy have thrown all their forces forward to Shelbyville, Beech Grove and other points.
General Baird, of the Eighty-fifth Indiana, in command at Franklin, was attacked by the rebel cavalry yesterday and at last accounts was still fighting successfully. There is an evident disposition on the part of the enemy to keep up a succession of reconnoitering expeditions along our whole line near Murfreesboro to annoy our army. They are making demonstrations on the Manchester and Shelbyville roads, keeping our pickets constantly employed.
A mounted force of rebels advanced on the 2d instant and engaged our videttes on the Manchester pike road. The firing between them was very rapid and lasted about an hour, when the rebels withdrew.
The news from the Rappahannock today is interesting. Colonel Kilpatrick has been making another cavalry raid from Yorktown to Urbana, Middlesex county, Va., touching again at Gloucester Point and Court House. He destroyed in his way much rebel property and carried off about one thousand negroes, three hundred horses and mules and clearing out the granaries and hencoops to an unlimited extent on the route between Yorktown and the Rappahannock. Mosby’s rebel cavalry made another raid on our pickets near Fairfax Court House yesterday morning, but did not effect much.
The military order of General Burnside, suppressing the issue of the Chicago Times, has been withdrawn by that officer in consequence of the revoking of the same by the President. The soldiers who occupied the office of the Times have been withdrawn by General Burnside, and the circulation of the paper within the army lines and elsewhere is henceforth permitted. The voice of the people, as expressed openly and fearlessly upon this infringement of the freedom of the press, thus appears to have had its weight.
We have intelligence from the Red river to the effect that an expedition recently made to Shreveport succeeded in destroying two iron-clads of great power found on the stocks there. No confirmation, however, of the rumor has been received.
The rebel blockade runner Cuba, while attempting to run from Havana for a Southern port, with a cargo worth $400,000, was pressed so closely by the Union ship DeSoto, on the 17th ult., that she was set on fire by her crew and burned to the water’s edge. Her officers and crew were taken on board the DeSoto: but her whole cargo was lost.