The capture of Plymouth
We at last have the positive intelligence that Plymouth is taken. It was stormed by General Hoke, of North Carolina, on Wednesday. Full twenty-our hours before it was captured we had the news here that it was ours. Of course, the premature report grew out of the movement upon the place and the conviction that it must fall. The result is sixteen hundred prisoners, twenty five cannon, (probably sledge pieces,) a large amount of small arms, and valuable stores, commissary and quartermaster.The details are not yet very full, but enough to show that the work is complete. It is gratifying that this first redemption of North Carolina ground from Yankee occupation — Lee., the first fortified post held by the enemy — is achieved at least chiefly by North Carolinians, under one of their own Generals. This sort of national satisfaction is just what all would be delighted to accord to each of the generous and intrepid State partners and participants in the struggle now conducted by the Confederacy for all that we hold dear on earth. Whenever the cession arises, and it is possible to so order it, the sons of the immediate soil should bear off the chief honor of pitching the hated invader, neck and heels, out of the land.
Plymouth is situated on the Roanoke river near its junction with the Albemarle Sound, and is about one hundred miles from Weldon. On the northern shore of the sound, some fifteen miles or so from Plymouth, stands Edenton, the largest of the towns on the sound, and as by the taking of Plymouth a Confederate iron-clad is liberated from the Roanoke to patrol the sound, Edenton is no longer a safe place for Yankees.
Albemarle Sound communicates with the Pamlico Sound, which became so well known to newspaper readers in studying Burnside's expedition and his capture of the towns and Islands of the sound. Roanoke Island is the point of division between the two sounds. We cannot anticipate the course of the gunboat thus new let loose, nor of the Confederate movement of which we suppose this Plymouth triumph is only a part. We may well imagine that a staunch gunboat of light draft and guns of large calibre, once past Roanoke Island, could initiate a grand ball on the amber hued waters of the Pamlico.--The transports employed there by the Yankees to serve the wants and purposes of their garrisons at Newbern and elsewhere, would be as much terrified by her appearance among them as would be a school of fat, delicate panfish on discovering a shark in their midst busily engaged in gulping them down.
Newbern, on the Neuse river, near the point of its entrance into Pamlico Sound, is by land nearly due south of Plymouth, and about sixty miles distant from it. The waster communication between the two places, through the two sounds, is quite circuitous, and must be near one hundred and fifty miles long. Washington, on Tar river, another stream that loses itself in Pamlico, is directly on the land route from Plymouth to Newbern, and half way between them. --There the Yankees are posted, it is supposed, with some show of strength. With Plymouth taken, and a gunboat on her errand in the sound, Washington would become very unhealthy for them.
But we will not anticipate. If the events to follow the capture of Plymouth are indeed to be important, the fact will soon be known. But whether they are or are not; the taking of that town is an event highly cheering, and in itself of great importance. We recover the Roanoke valley entirely to Albemarle Sound, and that is a great deal.--It is needless to speak of its advantages.--They are understood and appreciated by our people.
We should add that the Chowan river, which empties itself into the Albemarle Sound near Edenton, has for its tributaries the Meherrin, Nottoway, and Blackwater rivers — the latter of which, at least, the enemy has employed to his advantage in his movements upon Southside Virginia. With a formidable iron-clad to keep guard in the sound, the enemy cannot safely continue his aquatic performances thereabouts. Nor can he carry on with impunity his commerce for military purposes through the Dismal Swamp, via the Pasquotank river, to and from Elizabeth City, located on that river, also a tributary to Albemarle Sound.
It may be inferred that no Yankee seagoing monitor or iron clad can enter either of the sounds, and that the Confederate boat now canvassing these waters will have certainly, for a time, a triumphant career. Let us at least hope a good deal without expecting too much — good policy always. Let us not run into the error, since our recent brilliant successes, of being disappointed unless we take a fortified town every day.--They come in very beautifully as it is.
After writing the above the dispatch from Col. Taylor Wood, noticed elsewhere, was received, which shows that our forces obtained a naval as well as a land victory.
