the Pamunkey to White House, where I destroyed by fire the ferry-boat, two sloops loaded with grain, two barges, four pontoon boats, steamer Little Magruder, the storehouse, containing about 1,000 bushels of wheat, commissary stores, consisting of whiskey, soap, candles, salt, etc., etc. The torch was next applied to the railroad dépôt (also containing freight for Richmond), the tank, the rolling stock, signal station, sutlers' buildings and stores-remaining until the demolition was complete.

"The object of the reconnoissance being accomplished, I returned to West Point, arriving at five o'clock P.M., thence by steamer to Yorktown, arriving at midnight, having sustained no loss whatever during the expedition."

The enemy having, on the 9th of January, crossed the Blackwater, made an attack upon the right of the Union force garrisoning Suffolk. "General Pryor," declared the Confederates, "encountered Dodge's mounted riflemen five miles from Suffolk, with two companies of cavalry, and routed them, inflicting considerable loss. General Pryor remained in line of battle until Sunday morning, but the enemy would not leave their strongholds. Learning that 8,500 Yankees were at Carrsville, General Pryor pushed across to intercept them. They fled on our approach, escaping through Gates County."

Major-General Peck, however, the Union commander at Suffolk, gave this very different version of the affair:

"The enemy," he said, in his dispatch of January 10th, "crossed the Blackwater

in considerable force, and attempted yesterday to drive in our right wing at Providence Church. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery were employed by the rebels; but they were repulsed by Major Wheelan's New York Mounted Rifles. At dusk the enemy's advance was charged upon and driven back upon his supports. At intervals through the night, shells were thrown from the rebel batteries."

General Pryor having again recrossed the Blackwater with an increased force, and menaced Suffolk, General Peck sent out General Corcoran to resist him. A battle ensued, the result of which, according to Pryor, was as follows:

This morning, at four o'clock, the enemy, under Major-General Peck, attacked me," wrote Pryor in his report of January 30, at Kelly's Store, eight miles from Suffolk. After three hours' severe fighting. we repulsed them at all points and held the field. Their force is represented by prisoners to be between 10,000 and 15,000. My loss in killed and wounded will not exceed fifty-no prisoners. I regret that Colonel Poag is among the killed. We inflicted a heavy loss on the enemy."

According to the Union accounts, the enemy were driven from the field and "followed up until they took another position two miles beyond." The loss of the Unionists was computed at twentyfour killed and eighty wounded. The rebels, notwithstanding their reported discomfiture by Corcoran, succeeded in holding the bank of the Blackwater River, on the Suffolk side, where they

constructed intrenchments. On the 17th of March, an attempt was made by a Union detachment, under Colonel Spear, to carry these works. Several assaults were spiritedly made, but proved unsuccessful, with a loss on our side of seventeen wounded and missing.

The enemy continued to advance with increased forces. They finally reached the Nansemond and threatened to cross it and attack Suffolk. On this river they established strong batteries in order to cover the transportation of their troops, with the view, apparently, of getting into the rear of the town and cutting off its communication with Norfolk. With their works on the Nansemond, they were able to obstruct its navigation and interrupt the water communications with Suffolk. The Union gun-boats were frequently fired into and occasionally disabled. In the mean time, the Unionists were diligently fortifying Suffolk, and finally made ready to sally out and act on the offensive. On the 19th of April, General Getty, with the Eighty-ninth New York and Eighth Connecticut regiments, aided by the gun-boats, stormed one of the enemy's batteries and captured six guns and 200 prisoners. Several attempts of the enemy to cross the Nansemond having been defeated, principally by the fire of the Union gun-boats, and a call being made for the Confederate troops to concentrate, in consequence of the advance of General Hooker toward Richmond, the siege of Suffolk was

raised.

As the enemy prepared to retreat, a

reconnoissance, conducted by General Getty, was made, which led to a severe engagement. "The result of the affair," says a Union chronicler, was, May that our troops had driven the 3. enemy about one mile and had captured his first line of rifle-pits. The full object of our reconnoissance was then attained."

The enemy were followed to the Blackwater on their retreat, in the course of which several skirmishes occurred, with unimportant results.

The whole loss of the Unionists during the siege of Suffolk was computed at 44 killed and 202 wounded.

The retreat of the enemy was succeeded, on the 15th of May, by a Union expedition into the interior of Southeastern Virginia, for the purpose of destroying the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad. This object was accomplished after a severe skirmish with some detached parties near Carrsville. Notwithstanding that Suffolk had held out so successfully against the repeated efforts of the enemy, it was finally thought advisable to withdraw the Union garrison to a more defensible line, which was not done, however, until a considerable time after the besiegers had retired.

General Dix now devoted his main operations toward obtaining occupation of the peninsula between the York and James rivers. On the 7th of May, a portion of the fourth army corps, under the command of General Keyes, landed at West Point. Having been conveyed by a fleet of gun-boats, the troops sailed

up the York River and disembarked without molestation. From West Point General Keyes sent out a reconnoitring party to White House, which destroyed a bridge and captured a score of prisoners. Again, a few days after (May 13), the gun-boat Morse, Lieutenant-Commanding Babcock, ascended the Mattapony River to Indiantown, twenty-five miles distant from West Point, destroying considerable grain and other property by the way.

On the 4th of June, General Keyes sent out a combined expedition of land and naval forces, consisting of 400 infantry, three gun-boats, and a transport. After some preliminary skirmishing with the enemy's scouts, the force penetrated to Ayletts, where an iron foundry, a mill, and a quantity of grain and other stores were destroyed. As the enemy were in strength a short distance in advance, the Unionists, after the successful raid, cautiously retired. General Keyes now concentrated his whole force at White House, and made a show of more imposing operations. He accordingly marched his troops, after some severe skirmishing, to a position four miles south of the White House. The enemy, by an attack upon the Union July advance which forced it to fall 4. back, having shown themselves to be in considerable strength, and General Keyes having accomplished his main object, which was to make a diversion in favor of the Army of the Potomac by threatening to advance to Richmond by the peninsula, made no further attempt to go forward. Meanwhile the

enemy, under the command of General Wise, retired beyond the Chickahominy.

On the 18th of July, Major-General Foster arrived at Fortress Monroe, and assumed the command as the successor of General Dix, who had been ordered to New York. In the course of the reconnoissances made by the new commander, he sailed up the James River with three armed vessels. When within six miles of Fort Darling, one of the gun-boats, the Commodore Barney, struck upon a torpedo. "The effect of the explosion," testifies an observer, "was terrific in appearance. * * * The vessel was lifted by the shock upward of ten feet out of water, and an immense jet of water was hurled from her bow fifty feet in the air at least, falling over and completely deluging her her and washing overboard thirty men.' Two only, however, were drowned. The engines of the Commodore Barney were disabled by the shock, and it was found necessary to tow her down the river.

Western Virginia, during 1862 and for most of the succeeding year, 1862. continued to be a field of partisan warfare. The enemy's cavalry, under Jenkins and Imboden, made a succession of raids, and often succeeded in taking the Union garrisons by surprise, and carrying off large quantities of plunder. Buckhannon, Glenville, Weston, Spencer, Ripley, and Ravenswood were thus surprised and sacked, in August and September, 1862. September, 1862. "The raids of the rebel guerrilla A. G. Jenkins, in Western Virginia, with his 800 bushwhack

ers," says a correspondent, " sum up pretty large: He defeated the Union force at Buckhannon on the 30th of August, entered the town, destroyed large quantities of government stores, broke up 5,000 stand of arms, and carried off a number of horses and Enfield rifles, besides allowing his men to take what they wanted from the private stores in the village. He then proceeded to Weston, where he also destroyed all the government supplies. At Glenfield the same operations were gone through with. The town of Spencer next surrendered to Jenkins, where he took 150 of our men prisoners, and captured and destroyed 100 guns. From thence he visited Ripley and Ravenswood, where like scenes were enacted, and where he captured Major B. H. Hill, a mustering officer, having in his possession 5,000 dollars government money."

A more regular force of the enemy, computed at 5,000 men, commanded by General Loring, entered Western Virginia in September, 1862, and getting into the rear of a Union encampment at Fayette, attacked it. A severe struggle ensued, and the Unionists, whose original number was 1,200, cut their way through to Gauley, with a loss of 100 killed and wounded. Another column of the enemy approached Gauley Bridge, on the Lewisburg road, and thus succeeded in cutting off the small Union force at Summerville. Gauley was in consequence evacuated by the Federal troops under Colonel Lightburn, who, being pursued, continued his retreat to the

Ohio River, though making an occasional stand by the way and beating back his pursuers. Gauley Bridge was destroyed and Charleston shelled and burnt, together with some of the salt-works and government stores, by Colonel Lightburn, as he retired. A correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, of September 18, 1862, gives this resumé of the invasion of the valley of the Kanawha, and the consequent retreat of the Federal forces:

"A report," he says, "has been sent by the dispatches of the associated press to the effect that the Federal forces destroyed the salt-works near Charleston in their retreat from the Kanawha. This is a mistake. Only two out of about twenty of the works were destroyed, and they only partially. It is much to be regretted that there was a particle of machinery left unbroken, or a bushel of salt not consigned to the river. But our men are not to blame, as they were at the time closely pursued by 13,000 rebels, whose every energy was bent on cutting them off a short distance below Charleston. The salt-works are not, as is commonly supposed, in the town of Charleston, but are scattered along the road for a space of twelve miles, between that place and Camp Piatt, where our forces were encamped last winter.

"An immense quantity of salt has fallen into the hands of the rebels, with the necessary facilities for supplying the entire Confederacy, should they remain in undisputed possession of the Kanawha for a few months. The 'victory'