June 29, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
We have no recent intelligence of an authentic character from the army of Northern Virginia. The Richmond Examiner, of Friday, says:
It was reported on the streets yesterday morning that General Lee’s pickets were at the Chain Bridge, over the Potomac, four miles above Washington, but our utmost diligence failed to discover the origin of the report. Yet, that it is true is by no means improbable. If, as is believed, General Lee crossed the Potomac last Sunday morning, his pickets may, by this time, be even nearer Washington than the Chain Bridge. The story that Hooker crossed the Potomac between Leesburg and Washington is discredited in official circles. It is believed, if he has crossed the river at all, it was at Washington city. But we must confess that as regards the whereabouts of either the Northern or Southern army, all is mist and darkness here. Still, no one is dissatisfied with or uneasy about the situation. All feel confident that General Lee knows everything that need be known, and for the rest, they must trust confidently to the God of battles and the prowess of Southern arms.
The Central train, that rarely failing source of interesting intelligence, brought us last night not so much as a rumor. From Staunton to Richmond all was reported quiet, a certain evidence that the tide of war is rolling northward. Today, for the first time, we are enabled to lay before our readers some well authenticated facts concerning the capture of Winchester, and the subsequent operations of the left wing of our own army. Milroy was certainly surprised at Winchester, and as certainly deserted his army and, disguised in citizen clothes, fled the night before the assault was made on the town by General Early. The immediate material fruits of the capture of the town were 4,700 prisoners, thirty pieces of cannon, two hundred and fifty wagons, twenty ambulances, four hundred horses; all the public and private baggage of the enemy; and a vast amount of sutler’s stores. After the capture of Winchester, Imobden taking route along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, injured the enemy to the extent of millions of dollars. He burnt all the workshops, machinery, locomotives and other rolling stock at Cumberland; completely destroyed every bridge from the Little Capon river to a considerable distance west of Cumberland, and blew up the great tunnel near Cheat river. The great iron bridge over Cheat river was knocked to pieces by eleven shots from a three inch rifle gun, and the whole magnificent structure tumbled a mass of ruins into the river below. This bridge was a wrought iron structure, four hundred yards long, supported on vast iron tubes, and swung some three hundred feet above the rocky bed of the river. When its tubular supports were burst asunder by the cannon shots, it fell a perfect and irredeemable wreck. Its stupendous weight must have crushed and bent every piece of iron in it, from the least to the greatest. It is now utterly worthless, except for old iron.
This is certainly the greatest blow of the kind ever inflicted on the enemy. It will cost him many weary months of toil and many hundreds of thousands of dollars before railroad communication can be reopened with the West by this line, even should our armies leave him at once in quiet possession of the country. While Imboden was thus employed in the West, Colonel White, with his cavalry, was operating to the east of Harper Ferry. He succeeded in breaking up the rails of the railroad between the Ferry and the Point of Rocks, thereby cutting off from the Yankee force on Maryland Heights all communication with the east. At last accounts (as late as the 21st instant) Milroy was in command at the Maryland Heights, which position was virtually surrounded by our forces.
We have also some authentic intelligence from Stuart up to the 21st instant. From the 11th up to that date he had fought and whipped the Yankee cavalry every day, and sometimes twice a day, and had captured in all between five and six hundred prisoners.
Mosby, too, has not been idle. He has had several sharp skirmishes, but the most important thing effected by him was the capture of one of Hooker’s aids, who had in his possession a letter of instructions from Hooker to his cavalry commander. This letter was of incalculable service to us, disclosing, as it did, the plans of the enemy. It is said to have shown that Hooker was terribly puzzled to know where Lee was, and what he was going to do.
THE ENEMY IN TIDEWATER VIRGINIA.
The reports of the landing of the Yankees at the White House was renewed yesterday, and this time with some show of truth. During the morning information was received from Drury’s Bluff that seven gunboats and ten transports were coming up the Pamunkey. Some time later a despatch from the same source stated that heavy firing had been heard in the direction of the White House. This news was soon buzzed about the streets, and considerably discussed. Some persons refused to believe a word of it, and even those who believed there was truth in the story, were incredulous as to the number of gunboats. Why send seven gunboats to escort ten transports to an undefended and quiet locality, where there was not even a Confederate picket? The thing seemed and still seems preposterous. But this was the report, and about two o’clock, p.m., the York River train brought what at first seemed its confirmation. The officers of the train reported the Yankees in possession of the White House, and the railroad for five miles on this side, and that in consequence the train had put back.
From the engineer who ran the train we obtained the following statement: When the train, on its down trip, about eleven o’clock, a.m., reached Tunstall’s station, twenty-three miles from Richmond and five miles from the White House, the section master at that point informed him that it was unsafe to proceed further, as the Yankees had possession of the lower end of the road. On looking down the track in the direction of the White House, he saw, distant about a half mile, a body of cavalry and what appeared to be infantry. Thereupon, by the direction of the superintendent, who was on board, he backed the train and returned to the city. The train was at no time in sight of the Pamunkey, and consequently neither gunboats or transports could have been seen by persons on board. The country people about Tunstall’s said that the Yankees had come up the river about seven o’clock in the morning, and from their gunboats, the number of which was unknown, had shelled for half an hour every thicket and clump of trees in the vicinity of the White House. This was all that was known up to six o’clock last evening. There is little doubt that the enemy took possession of Tunstall.
We have it from the best authority that the seven thousand Yankee who were on Wednesday reported to have landed at Brandon for the purpose of marching on Richmond, turned out to be only three hundred miserable wretches, whose object was to destroy the valuable wheat crop on that plantation. They attempted, by means of brushwood and other combustibles, to fire the growing grain, but without success.
Examiner of Friday.