2

New Orleans Taken.

No event of the war will cause greater congratulation throughout the west, than the occupation of New Orleans by federal troops. The bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, guarding the approach to the city by river, commenced on Monday, the 14th; on the 24th the forts were surrendered or evacuated, and on Friday, the 25th, the federal fleet appeared before the city. The rebel army had previously evacuated, destroying all the steamboats they could not take away, and burning the cotton stored in the warehouses. The defenses about Memphis will now be attacked from below, for the Mississippi is navigable for our gunboats as far up as Cairo, and but a few weeks will elapse before the northwest will once more have an open channel of communication to the ocean.