CONFEDERATE ATTACK ON SHERIDAN.

A correspondent of the World, in narrating Sheridan's splendid achievements at Five Forks, which resulted in the capture of 6000 prisoners and the final victory, relates the following:-A rebel colonel, with a shattered regiment, came down upon us in a charge. The bayonets were fixed; the men came on with a yell; their grey uniforms seemed black amid the smoke; their preserved colours, torn by grape and ball, waved defiantly. Twice they halted, and poured in volleys, but came on again like the surge from the fog, depleted, but determined; yet, in the hot faces of the carbineers, they read a purpose as resolute, but more calm, and while they pressed along, swept all the while by scathing volleys, a group of horsemen took them in flank. It was an awful moment: the horses recoiled; the charging column trembled like a single thing; but at once the rebels, with rare organisation, fell into a hollow square, and with solid sheets of steel defied our centaurs. The horsemen rode around them in vain; no charge could break the shining squares until our dismounted carbineers poured in their volleys afresh, making gaps in the spent ranks, and then in their wavering time the cavalry thundered down.

CONFEDERATE REPULSE.

The rebels could stand no more; they reeled and swayed, and fell back broken and beaten; and on the ground their Colonel lay, sealing his devotion with his life. Through wood, and brake, and swamp, across field and trench, we pushed the fighting defenders steadily. For a part of the time Sheridan was there, short, and broad, and active, waving his hat, giving orders, seldom out of fire, but never stationary; and close by fell the long, yellow locks of Custer, sabre extended, fighting like a Viking, though he was worn and haggard with much work. At four o'clock the rebels were behind their wooden walls at Five Forks, and still the cavalry pressed them hard, in feint rather than solemn effort, while a battalion dismounted charged squarely upon the face of their breastworks which lay in the main on the north side of the White Oak road. Then while the cavalry worked round toward the rear, the infantry of Warren, though commanded by Sheridan, prepared to take part in the battle. We were already on the rebel right in force and thinly in their rear. Our carbineers were making feint to charge in direct front, and our infantry, four deep, hemmed in their entire left. All this they did not for an instant note, so thorough was their confusion, but seeing it directly, they, so far from giving up, concentrated all their energy and fought like fiends. They had a battery in position, which belched incessantly down the breastworks; their musketry

made one unbroken roll, while Sheridan's prowlers on their left by skirmish and sortie, they stuck to their sinking fortunes so as to win unwilling applause from mouths of wisest censure.

SHERIDAN'S ATTACK.

It was just at the coming up of the infantry that Sheridan's little band was pushed the hardest. At one time, indeed, they seemed about to undergo extermination; not that they wavered, but that they were so vastly overpowered. It will remain to the latest time a matter of marvel, that so paltry a cavalry force could press back 16,000 infantry; but when the infantry blew like a great barn door -the simile best applicable-upon the enemy's left, the victory that was to come had passed the region of strategy, and resolved to an affair of personal courage. We had met the enemy; were they to To expedite this consummation, every officer fought as if he were the forlorn hope. Mounted on his black pony, the same which he rode at Winchester, Sheridan galloped everywhere, his face flushed all the redder, and his plethoric but nervous figure all the more ubiquitous. He galloped once down to the rebel front with but an handful of his staff. A dozen bullets whistled for him together; one grazed his arm, at which a faithful orderly rode, the black pony leaped high in fright, and Sheridan was untouched, but the orderly lay dead, and the saddle dashed afar empty.

be ours?

THE CONFEDERATE DEFEAT.

At seven o'clock the rebels came to the conclusion that they were outflanked and whipped. Wearied with persistent assaults in front, they fell back to the left, only to see four close lines of battle waiting to drive them off the field decimated. At the right the horsemen charged them in their vain attempt to fight out, and in the rear, struggling foot and cavalry began also to assemble. Slant and cross fire by file and volley rolled in perpetually, cutting down their bravest officers, and strewing the fields with bleeding men, and to add to their terror and despair, their own captured artillery threw grape and canister into their ranks, enfiladed their breastworks, and at last, bodies of cavalry fairly mounted their intrenchments and charged down the parapet, slashing and trampling them and producing inextricable confusion. They had no commanders, at least no orders, and looked in vain for some guiding hand to lead them out of a toil into which they had fallen so bravely and so blindly. A few more volleys, a new and irresistible charge, a shrill and warning command to die or surrender, and with a sudden and tearful impulse, five thousand muskets are flung upon the ground, and five thousand hot, exhausted, and impotent men are Sheridan's prisoners of war.

Acting with his usual decision, Sheridan placed his captives in the care of a provost guard, and

sent them to the rear. Those who escaped, he ordered the fiery Custer to pursue with brand and vengeance, and they were pressed far into the forest, many falling by the way from wounds and exhaustion, others pressed down by hoof or sabre stroke, and many picked up in mercy and sent back to rejoin their brethren in bonds. We captured in all fully six thousand prisoners.

REJOICINGS AT WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK.

The wildest enthusiasm prevailed at Washington and New York, on the receipt of the intelligence of the fall of Richmond. Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton both made speeches. The former said :-To Lord John Russell I will say, that British merchants will find cotton exported from our ports under treaty with the United States, cheaper than cotton obtained by running the blockade. As for Earl Russell, I need not tell him that this is a war for freedom and national independence, and not for empire, and that if Great Britain should only be just to the United States, Canada will remain undisturbed by us so long as she prefers the authority of the noble Queen to voluntary incorporation with the United States. (Cheers, and cries of "That's the talk!") Secretary Stanton said-In this great hour of triumph my heart, as well as yours, is penetrated with gratitude to Almighty God for his deliverance of the nation. (Tremendous cheering.) Let us humbly offer up