Today in History:

199 Series I Volume XXIX-II Serial 49 - Bristoe, Mine Run Part II

Page 199 Chapter XLI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.

FORT MONROE, VA., September 16, 1863-10 a. m.

(Received 10. 10 a. m.)

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief:

Fresh reports continue to come in, establishing the fact that a considerable force of Lee's army has passed to the south and southwest, principally to Chattanooga. In passing through Raleigh a Georgia regiment destroyed the Standard. The citizens then mobbed and destroyed all the secession papers in the city. Such is the report received this morning.

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General.


HDQRS. ARMY AND DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., September 16, 1863.

Major General J. G. FOSTER,

Commanding Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina:

Yours of the 14th was received at the hands of Major Jenney. Your views accord with mine in the matter of raids at the present. Since my dispatch, General Wessells reports a great movement south, with all the trains in the hands of the Government, so that citizens are unable to travel. This confirms the information I sent you, being from a most reliable source.

In all this movement, which is estimated at 30,000, I am very certain that General Hoods' division is to remain in North Carolina for the purpose of collecting deserters from Lee's army, of keeping down the Union feeling, and of sustaining the Confederacy. I have an Irishman who has just arrived from Petersburg. He escaped for the third time, and is under sentence of death. He says Hood's troops were arriving at Weldon when he came through. I have some information that some troops from Lee's army passed south via Salisbury, Charlotte and Columbia, probably to Charleston.

You will receive a communication in respect to the proper disposition to be made of Mr. Alfred Stanley, brother of the Governor, I believe. Is he an officer? If he is, and I was satisfied of the fact, I would at once forward him as a prisoner of war.

General Wessells still nervous about the gunboat near Halifax.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN J. PECK,

Major-General.


HEADQUARTERS,
September 16, 1863.

General NAGLEE and General FOSTER:

Mrs. Charles Swartz, just arrived at outpost, states she is a spy in the Government employ. Goes under the name of Mrs. C. Wilson. Has information which she wishes to take to Washington at once. She went from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and thence through the Confederate lines across the Blackwater to our lines. States that the whole rebel army is on its way to Tennessee. Virginia is to be evacuated. She saw in Petersburg General Robert Lee; badly wounded at


Page 199 Chapter XLI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.