states that the enemy had been driven back at
Zollicoffer, which is beyond Bristol. This dispatch was dated yesterday.
It is unintelligible.

But to-day we have a dispatch from Gen. Bragg, announcing a great battle
on the 19th and 20th insts. He says, "after two days' engagement, we
have driven the enemy, after a desperate resistance, from several
positions; we hold the field, but the enemy still confronts us. The
losses on both sides are heavy, and especially so among our officers. We
have taken more than twenty guns, and 2500 prisoners." We await the
sequel--with fear and trembling, after the sad experience of Western
victories. The Secretary of War thinks Longstreet's corps had not yet
reached Bragg; then why should he have commenced the attack before the
reinforcements arrived? We must await further dispatches. If Bragg beats
Rosecrans utterly, the consequences will be momentous. If beaten by him,
he sinks to rise no more. Both generals are aware of the consequences of
failure, and no doubt it is a sanguinary field. Whether it is in Georgia
or over the line in Tennessee is not yet ascertained.

SEPTEMBER 22D.--Another dispatch from Bragg, received at a late hour
last night, says the _victory_ is _complete_. This announcement has
lifted a heavy load from the spirits of our people; and as successive
dispatches come from Gov. Harris and others on the battle-field to-day,
there is a great change in the recent elongated faces of many we meet in
the streets. So far we learn that the enemy has been beaten back and
pursued some eleven miles; that we have from 5000 to 6000 prisoners,
some 40 guns, besides small arms and stores in vast quantities. But Gen.
Hood, whom I saw at the department but a fortnight ago, is said to be
dead! and some half dozen of our brigadier-generals have been killed and
wounded. The loss of the enemy, however, has been still greater than
ours. At last accounts (this morning) the battle was still raging--the
enemy having made a stand (temporarily, I presume) on a ridge, to
protect their retreat. They burnt many commissary stores, which they may
need soon. Yet, this is from the West.

The effects of this great victory will be electrical. The whole South
will be filled again with patriotic fervor, and in the North there will
be a corresponding depression. Rosecrans's position is now one of great
peril; for his army, being away from the protection of gun-boats, may be
utterly destroyed, and then Tenn