LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1987, 24 November 1863, Page 5

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

Home News Office, Sop 26. AMERICA. Intelligence to September 17 was received this morning per the Africa. Confederate accounts of the 14ih and 15th state that the Federals were perfecting arrangements for the peimanent occupation of Morris Island, and were erecting a telegraph line along the coast from Tybee Island to Cumrainirs Point. * General Pleasanton was sail) unable to effect a crossing of the Ilapidan on September lfi. Various statements are made of the inten tions of General Lee, who has fallen back from the line of the Kappahannock toward* Gotdurs»ille. It i« asserted by some that his retreat is merely a ruse by which be designs to draw General Meade across the Ripidan, and then, by rapid flank movements, himself to recross both the Rapid ai) und Ruppahnnnock, inlerpose lub forces between General Meade and Washington, and march directly upon that city. On the other hand, it is positively averred that the bulk of his army, with the exception of 40,000 men left in Virginia for the defence of Richmond, has been scut to Tennessee to co-operate with Gpner.ils Bragg and Johnston against Generals Rosecrans and Burnside. The President issued a proclamation suspending the habeas corpus throughout the United Slates on the 15th September. Great indignation against the edict is manifested by the Democratic journals. It seems that an expedition fitted out by the Federals of the North bus recently left New Orleans for the Texan coast. It comprises at least 30,000 men of all arms; and General Franklin, who was recently relieved of the command of a corps in the army of the Potomac, and was ordered to New Orleans, has chief command. Gaiveston will be the first point arrived at. and after its capture, the forces under General Franklin:* command will be so distributed as to corer all the points which it is supposed the French troops now operating in Mexico might desiie to occupy if the French emperor should throw off the mask and bacome the open, as he h now believed to be the seciet ally of the Confederacy. This expedition is the one which it was supposed was to operate against Mobile. Correspondence from New Orleans, under date of the 3rd Sept., states that 10,000 troops of the Rio Grande expedition had already gone forward by sea, and that another division had sent off overland via the Teche country.