Letter (starting on the middle of this page) from (Union) Rear-Admiral Farragut, U. S. Navy, to Commander Alden, U. S. Navy reporting the destruction of the U. S. ship Morning Light (Page 1 of 2 pages). This is in Volume 19 of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.
Flagship Hartford
New Orleans, January 27, 1863
Dear Captain: I have just received a dispatch that the Morning Light, off Sabine Pass, has been captured and destroyed by the rebel gunboats. There will be no end to this Galveston success until we make a clean destruction of one of their vessels. They came out, as at Galveston, with two cotton-packed steamers, in a calm, and I suppose ran ahead of the Morning Light and boarded her and set fire to her and took the schooner, her tender. They are growing bold. I think your howitzers in the tops would be a fine thing for such fellows as they approach. I hope that our first success will be a total destruction of some of them. Now we are obliged to blockade Sabine Pass with gunboats, and they will attack them soon, but I hope they will do their duty. I have nothing but disater to write the Secretary of the Navy.
I can hear nothing from General Banks yet. He has his artillery - I believe [it] is all here now - but he says nothing of a move up or down.
Were it not for the bad weather I would like to go down to Texas. I can not get vessels to Bell as fast as he requires them, in consequence of these disasters.
I congratulate you on your nomination for captain. (This report is continued on page 585)
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