FORT HATTERAS, July 25, 1861.

as, it is notorious, several of our general officers | had possession thereof. The following letter have stood to the staff in Washington Lieut. from the constructing engineer will show what Sharpe, another prisoner, is a citizen of Norfolk. was thought of the position by that gentleman, He, like Mr. Barron, wore the United States and I may add that it was generally considernaval uniform. Other than these, I believe ed impregnable by the military authorities of that none of the prisoners have ever been offi- North Carolina: cers of the regular army or navy establishment, though I believe Major Andrews, and some officers of the line, served in Mexico as private soldiers. The men composing the Seventh regiment North Carolina Volunteers are scarcely equal in appearance to the New York Seventh. They are not well clad. Their physique is not such as would lead one to select them for important duty. Fully one-third, I think, would be rejected in the Federal service, under the standard of surgical examination which now obtains. In intelligence they are greatly inferior to any regiment with which you in New England are familiar. Many of them appeared to be thoroughly convinced that they were all to be hanged-they have not yet found out what unconscionable liars their leaders are. In addition to the six hundred and ninety-two mentioned above, there are a dozen or so who are to be taken to Annapolis in the Adelaide, and quite a number severely wounded are to be cared for at the forts for the present.

Col. Warren Winslow, Military Secretary: COLONEL: The day before yesterday we hoisted our glorious flag over Fort Clark, a strong battery I have nearly finished of five thirtytwo-pounders, about half a mile from Fort Hatteras, which secures to us a cross fire upon the bar at the entrance to this inlet. I now consider this inlet secure against any attempt of the enemy to enter it. Our force of men I think rather weak to resist a land attack, in case the enemy should effect a landing in the bight of Hatteras. If we had three or four additional companies here, I should feel quite safe even in that event. As I have before remarked, this inlet is the key to Albemarle Sound, and it cannot be too strictly guarded. We are certainly under the espionage of the United States steamers, as they are seen every day or two in the offing, although they keep without the range of our guns. If I had reecived the ten-inch Columbiads, we could have Fort Hatteras-the first work erected-ap-damaged them some on their last visit, three pears to have been built rather to prevent days since. small gunboats from entering the inlet than as a defence against any such attack as that of this week. It is situated a considerable distance in shore, and faces the inlet. It is of octagon shape, with four sides of one hundred and forty feet and four of forty-two feet each. The walls are twenty-eight feet six inches thick at the terre-plein, and twenty feet at the top; six feet high at the inner crest and sloping one foot to the face. The platforms are raised ten feet; space between platforms ten feet; guns twenty-eight feet from centre to centre-all of which doth appear from the injured plan of the engineer, now before me. It mounted ten thirty-twos. A ten-inch columbiad was quite ready for mounting. Fort Clark is a square redoubt, standing on ground somewhat higher Chief Engineer Department Coast Defence. than the former, at the left and in front of it, As I have stated, the relative position of the so as to mask it well at all points except very two batteries was a serious injury to the denear the bar. It mounts six guns. In general fensive capacity of the position, in the second construction it is similar to its neighbor. It is engagement. The armament was very detivaluable only for defence against a seaward at- cient, and this appears to have been a source tack. Both are built of sand, strengthened of constant anxiety to the commanding officer; with sheet piling of two-inch plank, and by but the ordnance department writes him that being well turfed over. Both are provided all the heavy guns stolen at Norfolk have been with ample and thoroughly built bomb-proofs. taken elsewhere. But the guns-such as they The work does great credit to the skill of Colo-were-did not get the range to be expected of nel Thompson, the constructing engineer. It their grade; cause-the utter worthlessness of was, perhaps, an error to put the smaller bat- the powder used. The contents of the magatery in the inlet. That fact, indeed, had much zine, it was found after the capture, were ento do with the exemption of the attacking fleet tirely unfit for use; burning so slowly as not from danger, as in the positions taken by the to have much more than half the usual expanvessels for the purpose of shelling Fort Hat- sive force. Fuze is not to be had in the Southteras, on the second day, they were within ern army for the defence of such a position. range of the small battery, and would have So, for want of any thing better, they fired at suffered from it to some extent had the enemy us shell filled with sand. To defend the ap

We now have two privateers in this harbor, besides the war steamers Winslow, the Gordon, of Charleston, Captain Lockwood, armed with three guns, a fine large steamer. She returned this morning with a prize brig, laden with three hundred and sixty hogsheads of molasses. We have also a saucy-looking little pilot schooner, the Florida, mounting one sixpound rifled cannon. She captured a prize two days since, took her crew out, and sent her in with her own men. A United States Government steamer gave chase to the prize, and they were obliged to beach her near Nag's Head. She of course is a total loss.

Yours, respectfully,

Major W. BEVERHOW THOMPSON,

not arrive until the next day, excuses this by saying that the forces had only retired to the large fort. I beg his pardon-but I saw two flags go down. I presume that Colonel Martin supposed that the existence of the large battery was unknown to the fleet. They called it a "masked battery " in their official correspondence, but it was not so much masked as to conceal the knowledge of its location from the military authorities at Fortress Monroe; they heard of it nearly two months since.

proach from the beach, two field-pieces were | render, the next act of the rebels was to fire stationed half a mile from Fort Clark. But upon the Monticello. Mr. Barron, who did no attempt was made to use them; one was abandoned to our men before the first action was concluded, the second was withdrawn into the fort. But beyond all the poverty of materials, there was the great difficulty with the garrison-its incompetency and inefficiency. The officers had a quarrel among themselves, in which every soldier took a hand. Major Andrews was the first commander. Colonel Martin, who was a lawyer and a politician, came down one day and announced himself as Colonel commanding the regiment, and from that day until yesterday, when all feuds were buried in a common disaster, the quarrel was a bitter one; but to the last, the Major appears to have maintained his supremacy. The men quarrelled with the line officers too; several companies had agreed not to enlist for the war unless they could have new officers. Some companies were on the point of actual mutiny -so the members wrote their friends. Whiskey was a powerful enemy, too. One of the captains was fearfully inebriated when his command marched out of Fort Hatteras; and, I may add, that the whiskey which was found in the fort was the most dangerous enemy our troops were called upon to meet.

There was one young man in the garrison who appeared to be very cool. I take a page from his journal, to show his style:

Mr. Barron, Major Andrews, and some other dignitaries, came down to see the fight next day, and fifteen hundred troops came with them. But the troops were not landed, as I gathered from Mr. Barron, because he did not think it advisable. I saw the reinforcements, early in the morning, making off toward the middle of the sound, and there they remained until the white flag was raised, when they put with all speed for Newbern. Mr. Barron was in command on the second day. He knew that our troops could not land, and he assured me that in the two days' fighting he had but five men killed, and I believe him. How does it happen that with so little mortality, with ample protection for his men, and with the certainty that before many hours the weather would put a stop to the attack-for, be it remembered, that it very seldom happens, not once a year indeed, that a fleet of ships can lie so near Hatteras forty-eight hours-how happens it that an old soldier like Flag-officer Barron should surrender.

August 28.-We had no attack last night. Eleven ships are now in sight, about ten miles off. Eight of them are war steamers. We lay on our arms and by our cannon all night. Major Andrews has not yet arrived. Colonel I fancy this is the answer to the question: Martin sent to Newbern yesterday evening, by That the wood-work of a ventilator in the a pilot boat, after four or five more companies. bomb-proof, near the magazine, took fire, and They have not arrived yet. We have five guns the men raised a panic greater in degree than in our little fort, ten men, six of our company, that of our troops at Bull Run, and absolutely and four of Sutton's, and a gunner to each can- forced him to put up the white flag. The fort non, which makes fifty-five men in the fort. was in no great degree injured, and, according We have thirty-one men beside, who do not to Mr. Barron, there was no great danger to belong to any cannon, and Lieutenant Sitisen the men. They were, I imagine, almost enand myself have a squad of eight men to the tirely protected by the bomb-proofs. SupposLight Artillery, and we will start on the islanding, while the firing was going on, that it inust to prevent them from landing presently. Sut- cause great mortality in the forts, I gave the ton has twenty-one men who do not belong to rebels much credit for pluck. cannon squads. Captain Lamb told me to stay in the fort with all the men, but Sitisen says he has got to have me for gunner.

But the evidence left after the evacuation proves them to have been great cowards, supposing always that the story of Mr. Barron as to their loss is correct, and supposing that dead bodies and wounded men were not somehow mysteriously carried away. Mr. Barron ought, if his force was what it should be, to have taken our three hundred and fifteen soldiers first landed prisoners; instead of that, he permitted forty of these men to hold a fort seven hundred yards from him-the guns spiked at that--and to worry his men by occasional rifle balls. Can any thing but thorough incapacity, poverty of resources, and want of discipline, account for this?

Major Andrews was absent on a furlough when the bombardment commenced. Colonel Martin was therefore in undisputed command. The proposition to contest the landing of troops was abandoned without a trial. The action had not continued an hour when the men commenced running away by ones and twos. After half an hour, not more than two guns-I am tolerably confident not more than one-was worked. Finally, the flags of both forts were hauled down, and large numbers of the troops fled in boats. I say this advisedly, having witnessed it myself from the quarter-deck of the The net gains of the expedition—in a maflag-ship. Having thus given the signal of sur-terial sense-may be summed up as follows, to

wit:-One Acting Cabinet-officer of the Con- | Wabash, under Major Doughty; a portion of federate States; seven hundred and fourteen the Marine Guard of the Cumberland, under other persons of no particular account intrinsi- command of Lieutenant Heywood, and a porcally; two forts, in good condition; thirty |tion of the Naval Brigade, under Captain Nixon. thirty-two pound guns-good of the kind; one These were landed in safety, though only after ten-inch columbiad, ready for mounting; three great exertion, for the breakers made it very brass six-pounder field-pieces; one thousand rough and dangerous to land. The coxswain stand of arms; twenty-five rounds of cartridges of one of the launches (whose name I did not for heavy guns-excellent for boys to play with learn) was the first to land, and was immeas it is not likely to explode; quantity of shells diately followed by Lieutenant Loder, of Capfilled with sand--the secessionists having no tain Larned's company, whose exertions in asfuze-of any particular value; brig with a cargo sisting the other forces in landing are worthy of fifty bales of cotton; two schooners with of special notice. Every effort was made to assorted cargoes-one principally of coffee; save the boats from destruction, but as fast as two light ships piratically taken from the coast; they neared the beach the breakers carried large quantity of provisions; and finally, rich- them aground, and it was necessary for the est prize of all by far, the entering wedge. troops to wade ashore, and the boats remained aground despite our efforts to get them off and send them for others of our troops.

The pass commanded by these fortifications is the hole through which nearly all the pirates now infesting our waters find their dens. Four or five of them are now in the sound, or the rivers emptying into it, and cannot escape without the grossest inefficiency on the part of our gun-boats-and nobody who is acquainted with the officers in charge of them will fear any thing of that sort. There is but one other escape for privateers-that through Ocracoke -a difficult pass fifteen or twenty miles below Fort Hatteras. That point can now be easily possessed, if Hatteras is held and reinforced, as from it an expedition might be easily fitted out which could annihilate the works at Ocracoke in an hour. It is the key to the whole North Carolina coast; it is the backdoor to Norfolk and to Richmond.

Each moment the sea became rougher, and the prospect of landing more troops more hopeless, and at last had to be abandoned, and the other troops that had been transferred to smaller vessels to effect a landing through them, had to be taken back to the transport steamers. We were, therefore, left alone on the beach, with but about three hundred troops in all with only two howitzers, and a wheel of one of these was so much disabled in getting it ashore as to be useless to us, and thus really leaving us with one rifled howitzer for our protection. All became wet in landing, much of the ammunition damaged, and no provisions or water were brought off from the vessels, as it was expected that these would be sent off when our small boats would return to the ships. In this connection I should not omit to mention the heroic conduct of Lieutenant Crosby, of the United States Navy, whose exertion to effect a landing of our troops is worthy of special com

ACTION OF THE TROOPS ON SHORE. UNITED STATES SHIP MINNESOTA, September 2, 1861. Having completed the arrangements for the expedition against the forces at Hatteras, General Butler and staff took passage on the Min-mendation. During nearly the whole time the nesota, which led the fleet. We left Hampton Roads at noon on Monday, and on Tuesday afternoon we arrived off Hatteras Inlet, and the Cumberland joined us there, having been sent down from Fortress Monroe previously. Arrangements were made to begin operations at early dawn of next day, but it was found impracticable to begin so early, and the vessels did not get in position to open fire until nearly

noon.

As soon, however, as the proper range was obtained, a tremendous fire was opened and kept up by the Minnesota, Wabash, and Cumberland; and while these vessels were engaging Fort Clark, which is the outer and smaller of the forts, the Monticello and Pawnee cleared the beach further up and afforded an opportunity for the troops to land.

Immediately such portions of the troops as could be put into small boats were started for the beach, consisting of a portion of the Gernian regiment, under Colonel Max Weber; one company of regulars under Captain Larned, United States Army; the Marine Guard of the Minnesota, under command of Captain Shuttleworth; a portion of the Marine Guard of the

vessels kept firing on Fort Clark, and at this time the Susquehanna, which had not been with us before, joined the fleet and opened fire also. The shelling from the different vessels was now terrific. The troops were about two miles distant and formed in line, and were organized as well as their situation would allow; but as no such contingency as the separation of so small a portion of the troops had been anticipated, they were much at a loss to know what course to pursue.

The wind continued to rise and still more endangered the vessels, and required them to move further from the land. Thus no communication could be had with the vessels by the troops, and no chance of retreat was left them in case of an attack upon them, as was anticipated. Scouts were sent out to reconnoitre, who soon returned and reported that Fort Clark had been evacuated, and that the troops had been removed to Fort Hatteras, three-fourths of a mile distant, and that the Monticello had changed her position and was firing upon Fort Hatteras. The troops were, therefore, immediately marched up to take possession of Fort Clark and hoist the Stars and Stripes on the ramparts. In the

mean time the firing had nearly ceased, except from the Monticello's guns, and when our flag was hoisted on the ramparts a fire was again opened upon the fort and our own troops shelled out of it, notwithstanding two of our flags were raised and floating from the ramparts. Quite a number of our troops had entered the fort, and were there when the shells began bursting around them, to their great surprise.

them to retreat for the night, and we took up our march for Fort Clark, and at the same time the vessels advanced and opened such a hailstorm of shells as caused us to halt outside of Fort Clark, as it was necessary for our vessels to fire over that fort to reach Fort Hatteras. During the firing the troops took up a position about half a mile from Fort Clark, and planted the rifled howitzer so as to command some steamers which were lying off Fort Hatteras, in the bay, either to land more troops or remove those in the fort, if they could no longer hold it. Happily for us they were within the range of our gun, and were compelled to retire beyond their position and remain there, and thus we prevented any communication with the fort except by signals. Whilst holding that position, the Pawnee by accident opened fire, and her shells fell so near the troops as to compel them to retire from their position and remain between the two fires until the white flag was hoisted on Fort Hatteras, when the troops advanced toward the fort and all firing ceased, and after that some of the officers of the fort were so dishonorable as to escape in emall boats before communication could be had with the fort.

None of our men were killed by it, but a private was struck on the hand with a portion of a shell, which burst in the fort, and covered Lieut. Carter, of the Marine Corps, and Dr. King, of the United States Navy, with dirt. The latter and Dr. Jones, of the United States Navy, were the only medical officers with the troops on shore. In mistake the fire was thus kept up on our forces, until they were compelled to retreat and leave there the stores, in the Quartermaster's Department, which they had found, and which they now so much needed; for they had become exhausted in their exertions to land the forces, and had then marched to the fort in wet clothes, and without any thing to eat since five A. M., and it was now about five P. M., and it became necessary to fall back to the landing. In doing so they captured some negroes, who had been acting as cooks for The troops took their position on the beach the forces there, and other prisoners in arms. and waited for the negotiation for the surrender From these it was found that their forces were to be made by the commanding officer. In the greater than ours, and that they were expect mean time, Dr. King, of the United States Naing reinforcements. No alternative was left vy, and Dr. Jones of the United States Navy, but to be resigned to whatever fate was in also, went into the fort and tendered their prostore, and all tried to be as cheerful as possible. fessional services, and when the Adelaide came Some sheep and geese were found and "ac-in with the troops, Dr. Humphrey, (I think,) quired" (to use a secession phrase) by our troops, and despatched very unceremoniously.

Camp fires were then built and our prey was roasted (or rather burned) on the bayonets and cutlasses, and on this the troops made their supper and breakfast. The manner in which it was served did not make it particularly inviting, but yet it was evidently very much relished in the absence of every thing else. Night was now upon us and bid fair to be a stormy one. Every now and again a little rain would fall and dampen our clothes, which had not yet become dry from the experience of the morning. Our pickets were posted around in different positions to prevent a surprise, and we bivouacked on the beach. It was an anxious night to all. While we were lying on the beach, discussing the comfort that it would afford us to be taken prisoners and marched to Richmond, they were getting reinforcements into Fort Hatteras and were arranging to attack us, which would have resulted in our capture, for they outnumbered us, and they were on their own grounds, and better organized than we were. Fortunately their pickets reported that we were moving forward in large numbers to attack them, and they waited until morning for our approach.

We, however, were quite willing to remain in safety where we were, and when morning dawned we saw the vessels coming in again from sea, whither the high winds compelled

the surgeon of one of the New York Volunteer regiments, joined them, and assisted to dress the wounded that were left in the fort, many of them having been removed in small boats to the steamers, at different times. About twenty in all were still in the fort, but the accurate number of killed and wounded would not be given, as inquiries relative to the numbers were always evaded; but the mortality must have been greater than they acknowledge. Dr. Humphrey remained to take charge of those so seriously wounded that they could not be removed from the fort, and the others were taken to the Adelaide, under the charge of Drs. King and Jones, kept there under the charge of Dr. King, and taken north, whilst the prisoners were transferred to the flag ship Minnesota, to be taken to New York.

Dissatisfaction exists among the officers taken prisoners, in consequence of what they say is a desire of the officers of the Union army to claim the victory, when they say they could not, from their situation, even assist the naval forces in the battle. They say the demand was made for a surrender to the United States Army, and that they refused to do so, alleging that they had not been whipped by them, and considered that they were able to defend themselves in their position against the army, but that they would acknowledge that they were whipped by the navy, and that they would

Yesterday and to-day we have been all excitement here. About seven o'clock in the So the defence of our coast at that important morning the Southern Confederate war steamer point has amounted to nothing at all. And yet Sumter entered the port, towing the schooner there has been every warning which prudent Amy Bradford, sent out by Rising & Co., with men ought to require in regard to our coast de-a full cargo to Chartier & Olavarria, as a prize. fence. It has been said for some time past that the Yankees were building war-vessels of small draft, and was it not evident that they were for our waters? Where else would they be required? The insecurity of our coast has been represented by legislators, private citizens, and military men. And with all this warning the Yankees have come upon us entirely unprepared, so far as effectiveness is concerned. Who is to