The Capture Of Norfolk

Our dispatches bring the gratifying intelligence of the capture of Norfolk, Portsmouth and the Gosport Navy Yard, by the forces under General Wool, which had advanced to attack the place, when it was surrendered.  The capture of this place ends the Confederate hopes of creating a navy. – Here they had a first class Navy Yard, which had been in their possession over a year. – Their famed armored frigate Virginia terminated her existence the very reverse of heroically, by suicide, when there was an abundant opportunity to do it in battle in the Bay. – Their fleet of gunboats at New Orleans is annihilated, and soon the Confederates, who have been calling on their King Cotton to compel England and France to open their ports, will find them all opened under their legitimate Government, and will be reduced to an internal insurrection, relying on Southern climate and miasma, instead of “Southern steel” and “Southern powder” which Jeff. Davis promised.

This prompt movement and important result are worthy the reputation of the veteran General Wool, and it was fit that an operation which he has urged upon the War Department for the last eight months should be carried into effect by him.  The immediate order for the expedition seems to have been the result of the visit of the President and Secretary of war to Fortress Monroe.  The occupation of this important place for a year in the face of our great naval power, and in the neighborhood of our immense army, has been a standing disgrace to our military management, and lattlery [sic] the Merrimac has been standing terror to Chesapeake Bay, and has barred the co-operation of our navy with the army on the Peninsula. – The palpable remedy was to take the place, which is now done.  The Confederacy is deprived of one of its greatest seizures, and the fearful iron monster which demolished two of our frigates, is no more. – {Cincinnati Gazette.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 17, 1862, p. 2