Today in History:

403 Series I Volume XL-II Serial 81 - Richmond, Petersburg Part II

Page 403 Chapter LII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.

good condition. Gregg's loss of men in the fight yesterday is much less than was reported this morning. Arrangements are good for crossing, though it will take several days to ferry the whole command over.

RUFUS INGALLS,

Brigadier-General, Chief Quartermaster.


HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, OFFICE OF PROVOST-MARSHALL-GENERAL, June 25, 1864.

General HUMPHREYS:

Phil. Carney, one of our men who was captured in Colonel Dahlgren's expedition, and Charles McCormick, of the First Michigan Cavalry, taken April 8, 1864, near Falmouth, escaped from Richmond last Monday, about 9 o'clock in the morning, went through the Chickahominy Swamp to the White House, and arrived here this morning. They were employed as nurses in General Hospital No. 21, in Richmond, to attend to the Union soldiers there [wounded], and on the night of the 19th instant, an order having been received to send to the front every man capable of bearing arms, the sergeants in charge of the wards, and the guards about the hospitals belonging to the army, were relieved by militia [boys scarcely able to bear the guns], and the next morning Carney and McCormick, having got on Confederate jackets, pretended to be clerks, took up the books as if they were such, and passed the guards. The troops who were thus relieved, it was understood, were sent to attack our forces at White House. At that time, and immediately previous, there were no troops in Richmond or in the fortifications about it, except the small number which the above order withdrew. There were of our men then in Richmond about 900 sick and wounded and about 200 well men, and a week before 1,000 had been sent to Americus, Ga. Carney says that there are three bridges between Fort Darling and Richmond. He was so told by a Union man there. He claims that there are a number of such, and that it is not difficult to find them out. Hogan is still in irons. Dykes and Jake Swisher have been sent to Georgia.

Very respectfully,
GEORGE H. SHARPE,

Colonel, &c.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, OFFICE OF PROVOST-MARSHALL-GENERAL, June 25, 1864.

General HUMPHREYS:

A negro, William Henry, is sent in from the Sixth Corps, who says he left Petersburg yesterday at 11 o'clock in the morning; came out at the southerly side on a plantation road that goes by the house of Mr. Wilcox, called the Wilcox road; that he was driving a spring wagon, and was supposed by the rebels to be going after feed; that he came from the Wilcox road direct to the lines of the Sixth Corps. He says that on his way he passed very few troops; that the main part of the enemy's force was withdrawn yesterday morning from the front of the Second and Sixth Corps, and was sent on the enemy's left to strengthen the attack against our right. He says that General Lee's headquarters


Page 403 Chapter LII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.