AMERICA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 35, 25 December 1861, Page 5

AMERICA.

There is little to relate of the progress of. the war in America. Some fighting has occurred in Missouri, and the Confederates have gained a victory at Lexington. Near this place the North has also put in a claim for the honour of a victory. The few particulars that are given oi the latter affair are in the gigantic style of Tom Thumb. The Confederates are represented as numbering 30,000, and the Federalists 3500, and we are told that the 30,000 were scattered by a bayonet charge, not of the 3500, but of the Irish Brigade, which, we presume, formed only a small part of the whole force. In another part of Missouri a skirmish is reported, in which 600 Confederates were routed by 1500 Federalists. This is more probable. But no importance attaches to any of these affairs ; and we must wait till General M'Clellan appears at the head of his army in the field before any decisive blow will be struck. The rumour of General Fremont's recall turns out to be unfounded. It is true, however, that his proclamation was in excess of the powers of the constitution. No choice was left, therefore, to Mr. Lincoln but to request General Fremont to modify his proclamation accordingly. The affair with Colonel Blair has produced much controversy; but the Government are evidently desirous of avoiding a rupture with Fremont. The army of M'Clellan now reckons up its 180,000 men, if the newspaper correspondents are to be credited ;. and the Confederates, hovering upon the Potomac with a--'force of unknown strength, were said to be maturing a plan for crossing the river above and below Washington, so as to open a simultaneous attack in the front and the rear. But this rumour has been contradicted by the subsequent withdrawal of the Confederates from their positions on the Potomac, which are now occupied by the Federalists. In Missouri the Confederates won an important victory, forcing Fort Lexington to surrender, and taking a large sum in dollars, which the brave defender of the place had buried in the earth. But the victory was of short duration, the conqueror having evacuated the place almost as soon as he had taken it. Fremont is said to have gone in pursuit of him, with a view to cut off his junction with M'Cullock, and thus prevent the combined force from attacking Jefferson City. Here, then, are collected on the plains of the illfated Missouri all the requisite elements for a deliberate conflict; and, in the bombastic language of the American journalists, a battle of magnitude may be speedily expected. The North upon the whole is looking up. Notwithstanding its appeals for skilled help from Europe, its difficulties about abolition, and its derangement of its social economy, it has kept its ground, and has, apparently, succeeded in getting together an army equal to its needs. We know little about what the South is doing ; but as far as we do know, the North, and not the South, has attracted such little stray chivalry as Europe has had to spare from its own necessities in that line. We do not hear of princes and peers offering to enrol themselves under the Palmetto flag, nor is it within the range of probability that Jefterson Davis will ever be surrounded by a staff one hundredth part as brilliant as that which will with M'Clellan to his first field. We are dazzled by the titles of honor, culled fresh from feudal Europe, that are collected about the Federalist general, the last volunteers being the Count do Paris and the Due de Chartres, who will not only serve in the retinue of the American general, but serve without pay, purely for the honour of the thing. Such adherents as these will not turn the tide of battle by the momemtum of a feather ; but they impart a prestige, notwithstanding, to the cause they espouse which will not be wholly without its value. The last intelligence brings two important items. A confederate expedition, organized for the recapture of Fort Hatteras, has been signally defeated ; but this piece of good luck is balanced by a disaster at New Orleans, where a Federalist squadron, which had blockaded the town, was attacked by a fleet of gunboats and driven ashore. The great expedition South is still talked of, and said to be in motion ; but the failure at New Orleans may check its progress. The Governor of Louisiana had interdicted the entry of cotton into New Orleans.