Editor’s Note: This article was transcribed by Jackie Martin. Portions of this article not pertaining to the Siege of Petersburg were removed.
THE WAR NEWS.
Yesterday passed off without news and without rumours. As the day declined, the profound quiet that reigned in the city was the subject of universal remark. This quiet did not precede a storm, but, on the contrary, most joyful tidings from the South.
FROM PETERSBURG.
We had no news from Petersburg yesterday until the arrival of the evening train. This train brought the intelligence that everything was unusually quiet along the lines before that city. But one shell was thrown into the place during the day. No one has been struck since Saturday. The train brought over a Yankee Lieutenant and ten men, who were captured on the lines in front of General Hagood. The Lieutenant was communicative. He says he was returning from relieving guard, when he lost his way and fell among our pickets. They neglected to take his pistol, and carried him to General Hagood, whom he could have shot if he had thought it safe. Grant, he says, is going to tear Petersburg to pieces with shot and shell in the course of a day or, two.—When asked if he thought Grant would do this without notifying our authorities, he said he presumed Grant considered the preliminary shelling he had been keeping up for several days as quite sufficient notice.
FROM KAUTZ.
We have nothing from the Yankee raiders in Nottoway since our last publication, but the fact that we do not hear from them convinces us that they are not near any of our important lines of communication; have given up their expedition, and are making their way back to Grant’s army at Petersburg.
Notwithstanding the conflict in the statements about the fight near Staunton river, we feel pretty well convinced that the engagements mentioned in the despatches published yesterday were one and the same, and took place at neither Staunton river bridge nor Clover depot, but at or very near the bridge over the Little Roanoke river, where the Danville road crosses the two. Little Roanoke river is a mile and a half this side of Staunton river, and flows into it a mile or two south of the railroad. Its course here is due south. On the west bank, and between it and the Staunton river bridge, are a high range of hills commanding the railroad and also the county road. We doubtless availed ourselves of these hills and here made fight. Unless this position was forced, the bridge over the Staunton was safe. The latter bridge is, as we have said, a mile and a half west of this position. Clover depot is two miles still further west.
CASUALTIES—THE ARMY INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.
The Army Intelligence office is thoroughly organized and ably conducted, and by application there persons can at all times learn the casualties in any regiment or battalion, and can also be informed as to the location of soldiers who have been sent to hospitals. The only thing necessary to the perfect efficiency of this office is that adjutants of regiments shall make prompt returns of casualties in their respective regiments, a branch of their duty which, we regret to say, they are in the habit of neglecting.
A MAJOR-GENERAL WHO STEALS SPOONS!
From the following letter it will be seen that not only the private soldiers in the Yankee armies are thieves, but their officers of highest rank. Thievery runs through them from the highest to the lowest. Here is a Yankee, not a dirty soldier in the ranks, not, what is dirtier, an officer of “coloured” troops, but a Yankee wearing the epaulettes of a Major-General in the service of the United States, caught with silver spoons in his mess chest, which he had stolen from the tea table of a Virginian lady!
“Headquarters Lomax’s Brigade,
“June 27th, 1864.
“TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER
“Will you please mention in your next issue that the following pieces of plate were found in the mess chest and wagon of General Custar, United States army, captured in a charge of the Fifteenth Virginia cavalry, at Trevillian’s station, on the 11th instant. These articles are supposed to have been stolen from citizens, and can be obtained by application to these headquarters: One silver tea pot; five silver spoons, marked ‘F;’ one pair sugar tongs, marked ‘H.B.E.L.; one pair sugar tongs, unmarked.
“Respectively.
“L.L. Lomax, Brigadier-General.”1
Source:
- “The War News.” Richmond Examiner. June 29, 1864, p. 3 col. 1-2 ↩