From Tennessee

CAIRO, May 14.

A deserter came on board the flag boat Benton, on the 12th and stated that the rebel rams and gunboats engaged in the encounter of Friday morning were not sunk, as represented in a previous dispatch. – They were terribly shattered, but our gunners undoubtedly fired the most of their shots above the water-line, and they struck where the rams were either heavily plated or protected with a layer of cotton bales.

Experienced naval men are of the opinion that the same number of shots, at the same distance, directed near or below the waterline, would have sent every one of the rebel crafts to the bottom.

The deserter reported that the rebel fleet lay off Ft. Pillow yesterday, busily engaged in repairing the damage received, faithfully promising to return in exactly 48 hours, and whip us most handsomely.  They may for once in their lives prove as good as their word, and come up to-day, and make a second desperate attempt, for no one supposes that anything but a most critical condition on their part could induce them to come out in this manner.  Farragut in the rear, Commander Davis in front, Curtis on the east, and the swamps of Arkansas on the west, are enough to make the most cowardly desperate.

An officer of the Union flotilla went out in a skiff on Friday afternoon, within sight of the rebels, and remained for more than an hour taking observations.  His report to the commander confirms the state of the activity in their fleet, and the fact that their rams were not sunk in the late engagement.

The rebels in the late fight were provided with an apparatus for throwing hot water, and actually tried it on the Cincinnati.  The bursting of their hose only prevented great havoc among the Union crew.  This bursting of the scalding concern probably gave rise to the idea that the rebels had collapsed a flue.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 16, 1862, p. 2