Today in History:

628 Series I Volume XVIII- Serial 26 - Suffolk

Page 628 NORTH CAROLINA AND S. E. VIRGINIA. Chapter XXX.

FORT MONROE, April 17, 1863.

Major-General PECK:

I said through your prudence there would be no evil result from your acting offensively, and that the enemy was full of stratagems and needed close watching. I have just returned from West Branch. Brought down General French's engineer. He was captured this morning by Lieutenant Cushing's picket. Will telegraph again.

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

SUFFOLK, April 17, 1863-8.50 p. m.

Major-General DIX:

Until some men are executed in front of Fort Union for cowardice I shall not feel safe in my responsible command. Some companies have behaved very badly, and the example is highly pernicious. I must try them, and must be sustained when I act.

PECK,

Major-General.

FORT MONROE, April 17, 1863.

Major-General PECK,

Commanding, Suffolk:

You will be sustained in any measures you may adopt for the punishment of cowardice or misbehavior in the face of the enemy. Try the miscreants at once. I have recommended Colonel Foster's promotion..

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

YORKTOWN, April 17, 1863.

Major-General DIX,

Commanding:

Yesterday I found a rebel battery of two rifled guns (Lieutenant Gillis thought they were Whitworths) on the left bank of the Pamunkey, 3 miles above West Point. They fired some twenty or thirty shots at us, which fell over and all around us, but none struck the gunboat. This morning at 4 o'clock I noticed the glare of camp fires on the clouds on the Gloucester side. The glare represented a large camp, but it was probably that of the 500 cavalry over there.

Governor Wise's pickets are now above Williamsburg. His boasting to take the forts has not yet been made good.

As it is represented the inmates of the asylum are on the borders of absolute starvation I have ordered up ten days' rations and sent back the paroled attendants.

E. D. KEYES,

Major-General.


HEADQUARTERS FOURTH ARMY CORPS, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL, Fort Yorktown, Va., April 17, 1863.

Lieutenant-Colonel FARNSWORTH,

Chief Quartermaster Fourth Corps:

COLONEL: The commanding general is informed that notwithstanding the late occupation of Williamsburg by the rebel forces under Gen-


Page 628 NORTH CAROLINA AND S. E. VIRGINIA. Chapter XXX.