WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, August 1, 1863-9. 45 a. m.

Major-General GRANT,

Vicksburg, MISS.:

GENERAL: YOUR report, dated July 6, of your campaign in Mississippi, ending in the capitulation of Vicksburg, was received last evening. Your narrative of this campaign, like the operations themselves, is brief, soldierly, and in every respect creditable and satisfactory. In boldness of plan, rapidity of execution, and brilliancy of results, these operations will compare most favorably with those of Napoleon about Ulm. You and your army have well deserved the gratitude of your country, and it will be the boast of your children that their fathers were of the heroic army which reopened the Mississippi River.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

Number 3. Reports of Mr. Charles A. Dana, special commissioner of the United States War Department. COLUMBUS, Ky., March 20, 1863-4. 30 p. m.

There is absolutely no information here respecting affairs down the river. General Rosecrans having abandoned Forts Henry and Heiman and ordered them to be leveled, and a rebel force having appeared at Heiman, Hurlbut, on Asboth's reporting the facts, ordered him to re-occupy Heiman, considering it to be the key to both Columbus and Paducah. Asboth accordingly proceeded there by water with two regiments of infantry, two cannon, and some cavalry, and found a small body of rebels at Heiman, who escaped with their leader, Major Blanton [?]. The order of General Rosecrans to level the works had not been executed, Henry being partially overflowed. Blanton was collecting horses and raising conscripts. The whole country being open to him, while the possession of Heiman would have made him master of the navigation of the Tennessee, the force mentioned was left by Asboth in Heiman, and he got back here by land yesterday, The iron-clad gunboat Tuscumbia, Captain J. W. Shirk, co-operated in the movement, and destroyed all the flats and skiffs collected by the rebels to force their operations on both sides of the Tennessee. Hereafter two small gunboats will patrol that river as far up as Savannah.

C. A. DANA.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

COLUMBUS, KY., March 20, 1863.

Captain [J. W.] Rigby, of Logan's staff, arrived here this evening, and reports that expedition down Yazoo, under McPherson, consisting of SEVENTEENTH Army Corps and Ross' DIVISION, captured a rebel fort at the junction of Tallahatchee and Yalabusha on the 13th instant, and took a small rebel force in the fort prisoners. Rigby does not know how many guns were in the fort. The attack was made by the gunboat