The Forrest City times., 1893-05-05

As If this were not enough, on rcach- ing Colooney on the 3th. about forty miles northeast from Castleb bar, Hum bert found himself confronted by fifth force, under Col VerreSer, of the Limerick militia, with a force of three hundred and thirty men and two cur ricle guns. A fierce and obstinate bat tie ensued-this was indeed the only real battle of the campaign-but after lasting about an hour, Verreker. find- ing himself overpowered by numbers, was compelled to retreat, with the loss of his guns, to Sligo.
 Although Humbert was victorious in thls encounter, it caused him to change his plans. He now marched towards Manorlamilton by Drumnahair, abandoning eight of his guns by the way: but in approaching the former place suddenly turned to the right, in a southeasterIy direction by Drunken. in. and attempted to reach Granard. in Longford, where rising had taken place. His rear was now constantly harassed blythe enemy, and on the 7th a smart skirmish took place with Crawford's advance guard, in which the French were victorious. Humbert now crossed the Shannon at Ballintra, but so closely followed that his rear guard had no time to break the bridge. He halted some hours at Cloone, to give his wornout troops brief rest, ano arrived next day. on the sth, at Ball ! inamuck.
 The viceroy, crossing the Shannon at Carrick, was meanwhile marching on St. Johnstown, in order to get in front of Humbert on his way tc Granard. The drama was now draw. ing to its close. Completely surrounded by an overwhelming force, Humbert saw that surrender was inevitable. For the honor of France, however, he determined to make at least a formal resistance; he therefore disposed his forces in order of battle and awaited the attack. His rear guard was at. tackled by Crawford, and, being over. powered, surrendered and the remain. der, after resisting Gen. Lake for half an hour, laid down their arms--the whole force amounting to about eight hundred and fifty the rest having been killed or wounded since the beginning of the campaign. The entire British force which surrounded Humbert num- bered about thirty thousand, or five thousand more than were employed at Waterloo, or, in later days, at the battle of the Alma.
 While the French received honorable terms of surrender, the Irish auxil- iaries, in number about fifteen hun dred, were shot and hanged without mercy, five hundred of them being killed in this way.
 The closing scene of the drama was the recapture of Killala, which had re- mained in possession of the French, or rather of Irish insurgents under two or three French officers. It was not until the 22nd of September that the royal forces, twelve hundred strong, arrived in Ballina, the Irish garrison fleeing at its approach. The English advanced on Killala in two columns, from the north and the south. The garrison posted themselves on the Ballina road. but were speedily overcome, and fled through Killala. pursued by the cav airy At the other end of the town they were intercepted by the second column, and about four hundred of the uIfortunates were killed.
 In this extraordinary campaign, which lasted from the 22nd of August to the sth of September, the French had marched one hundred and thirty miles, penetrating to the very heart of Ireland, and distant only sixty miles in straight line from Dublin, and had fought five engagements, in all of which they had been victorious. Why handful of French troops should have achieved such success was not so much due, after all, to their own prowess, as to the nature of the forces opposed to them. These were mostly local militia, quite unused to real war, and some of them disaffected. and not inclined to fight very hard against those they se. cretly regarded as their friends. It is related that number of militia who were put down as missing after the af- fair of Castle bar, had gone over to the French; one of them, on being after ward asked why he had done so, re- piled, that ''it was not he who had de serted, but the British army, who mad run away and left him behind to be murdered. Chambers Journal.