Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: We receive mingled news of successes and reverses in desultory military movements beyond the Mississippi, but nothing has occurred there to change, the attitude we held at the date of my last review of the campaign.
John Morgan, with what was practically a guerilla mounted band, lately passed over the border from Virginia into Kentucky and committed some depredations in the interior of that State, of no great significance. He was hotly pursued from the start by General Burbridge, and was finally defeated near Cynthiana, with the dispersion of his forces.
General Hunter, with his flying column, met and defeated the enemy in a pitched battle at Piedmont, and then seized and occupied Staunton, in the valley of Virginia. He made important captures there of prisoners, arms, ordnance and military stores. At the date of our last advices he had effected a union of the forces under his immediate command with the detachments under command of General Crook and General Averill, who have very thoroughly broken up the chief military communications of the enemy in that part of the country. We learn that on the one hand General Sheridan, with a considerable cavalry force, has gone out to meet and strengthen General Hunter, while Breckenridge, with some insurgent levies, has gone to resist Hunter’s attempt to. effect a junction with the army of the Potomac in front of Richmond. The very severe but heroic battle which was fought on the 3d of June at Cold Harbor resulted in satisfying Lieutenant General Grant that Richniond could not be entered directly from that point without unnecessary waste of military power; he therefore immediately began his preparations to seize a new and better position, and at the same time effect a junction with the forces yet remaining under command of Major General Butler on the south bank of the James river. The movement began on the evening of the 12th, and we are now anxiously waiting for information of the result.
The canvass for the presidential election was opened on the 30th of May by an assemblage of citizens, who put in nomination John 0. Fremont, late of California, for President, and John Cochran, of New York, for Vice-President. The Union convention, which, pursuant to the customary recommendation, assembled at Baltimore on the 7th instant, was attended by full delegations from all the States where the federal authority is recognized. This body nominated the present incumbent of the chief executive office for re-election, with Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, for the office of Vice-President.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
[Same to other ministers in Europe.]