From New Orleans

NEW YORK, May 7.

The steamer Columbia has arrived from Havana, the 3d.

The gun boat Daniel Smith arrived at Havana on the 30th, from Fort Jackson on the 26th.

The attack on the rebel forts commenced on the 18th.  On the 23d Com. Farragut in the Hartford, with 13 steamers, passed the forts, and Gen. Butler landed 4,000 men above.  The rebels lost eleven gun boats, and the Hollins’ turtle Manassas.  Our forces took 400 prisoners.  We lost 150 men, and our  gun-boat Verona was sunk. – On the 24th a flag of truce was sent to Com. Porter asking condition for surrender to which Porter replied “no conditions.”  Our flag now waves over the Custom House.

The capture of three rebel steamers is reported; they were sent to Key West.

Twenty mortar and three gun boats were engaged against the forts, silencing them after six days of hard fighting.

The chains across the river were removed by our gunboats.  The rebels sent five rafts down the river, but they did little damage.  They set fire to the Hartford, but it was speedily extinguished.

The Verona and the iron-clad rebel steamer Webster had a splendid engagement.  The Webster running into the Verona, and sinking her, but before going under the Verona’s crew poured in a volley of 8 guns, so destructive, that both the Webster and Verona went down together.

Arrangements for the surrender were to be made on the 27th.

The day after the Dispatch left the ram Manassas was sunk by the steamship Mississippi.

Our forces sent a small boat to the five rafts, which towed them out of the way before they could do any harm.

The rebel loss is unknown.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 8, 1862, p. 1