The following is the dispatch in the Richmond Whig from the commander of the rebel gunboat Arkansas:
Vicksburg, July 15, 1862.
We engaged today, from six to eight a. m., with the enemy’s fleet above Vicksburg, consisting of four or more iron clad vessels and two heavy sloops-of-war, and four gunboats and seven or eight rams. We drove an iron-clad ashore, with colors down and disabled, blew up a ram, burned one vessel and damaged several others. Our smokestack was so shot to pieces that we lost steam, and could not use our vessel as a ram. We were otherwise cut up as we engaged at close quarters. Lost ten killed and fifteen wounded others with slight wounds.
ISAAC N. BROWN,
Lieutenant Commanding.
The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat, Saint Paul, MN