The defending force consisted of about three hundred men, within the breastwork, and about two thousand as a reserve, partly deployed as skirmishers on the left of the battery. The rebels relied chiefly for the defence of their flanks on the almost impenetrable nature of the wood on each side. Their entire force, with the exception of the force working the battery, was scattered in front and in the woods on the left as skirmishers. The Federal army advanced from the bivouac-ground of the evening previous, where they had spent the night with nothing but thin overcoats to protect them from a cold, driving rain. They had left their knapsacks and blankets on the transports, each man carrying nothing but his haversack, with three days’ provisions, and his cartridge-box, with forty rounds of ball-cartridge. The centre, under the command of General Foster, was composed of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts, Colonel Upton; Twenty-third Massachusetts, Colonel Kurtz; Twenty-seventh Massachusetts, Colonel Lee, and the Tenth Connecticut, Colonel Russell, and moved forward about eight o’clock. They were followed by the second column, under General Reno, consisting of the Twenty-first Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi; the Fifty-first New York, (Shepard Rifles,) Colonel Ferrero; Ninth New Jersey, and the Fifty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel Hartraaf. The third column, led by General Parke, was formed of the Fourth Rhode Island, Colonel Rodman; First battalion, Fifth Rhode Island, Major Wright; and Ninth New York, Colonel Hawkins. A brilliant, well contested fight of two hours’ duration put the Federal forces in possession of Roanoke Island, with all the batteries, mounting thirty guns, and Fort Forrest, on the mainland, mounting eight guns. It resulted in the unconditional surrender of the rebel army on the island, numbering 2,500 men, with all their arms and munitions of war. Captain O. Jennings Wise, son of ex-Governor Wise of Virginia, lost his life in this engagement. The Governor himself, being absent from his command on the day of battle, escaped. Colonel Russell, of the Tenth Connecticut, and Lieutenant-Colonel De Monteuil, of the New York Fifty-third, were killed. The Federal loss was fifty killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. That of the rebels was about twenty killed, and sixty wounded. EVACUATION OF BOWLING GREEN, KY. FEBRUARY 14–16, 1862.