would advance when transportation
permitted. The position of the fleet was untenable for twenty-four
hours more; to have remained would have insured the loss of another
vessel; to advance was impossible without army co-operation: so,
very reluctantly, Commander Macomb gave the order to fall back to
Jamesville, there to await the action of the army. The fleet fought
its way back for seven or eight miles, and the rest of the way was
passed in quiet.

The Otsego had not yet been put out of commission--Commander Arnold
and a portion of her crew remaining on her hurricane-deck, and
living _al fresco_. Her heavy battery had been removed to the
Shamrock and Wyalusing, but her brass howitzer still remained on
her hurricane-deck to defend her crew. A survey was now held upon
her, and it was decided that it was impossible to raise either her
or the Bazeley. Everything that could be removed was taken away,
and two torpedoes were placed in her hull and exploded, thus
finishing the work of the rebels. Her remains were then set on
fire, and she was burned to the water's edge.

The entire fleet, with the exception of the Chicopee and
Mattabessett, are now at Jamesville; and the United States steamer
Lockwood, to which Captain Aimes was ordered after the loss of the
Bazeley, joined it last night, having sailed from Newbern to do so.

COMMANDER MACOMB.

The indomitable perseverance of Commander Macomb and his captains,
in pushing on through a river filled with torpedoes and lined with
sharpshooters for fifty miles, dragging almost every foot of the
way, and driving the enemy before them, is unsurpassed even in the
brilliant naval history of this war. Many commanders would have
faltered after losing two of their vessels; but there was no
faltering in Macomb. It was not until all hope of land co-operation
was exhausted, and until it was demonstrated that without a land
support he could go no further, that he consented to retire.
Throughout the whole expedition, he asked his men to encounter no
danger that he did not himself share. His exposure of himself to
death was constant and unflinching; his coolness and
self-possession never left him; and in him his officers and men
beheld an example worthy of their emulation.

Thanks of the officers of the Otsego, to Captain Wood and officers