Correspondence of the Phil
adelphia.
Inquirer.
WILLIAMSPORT,
May 30.
All is quiet here, and the Rebel hordes that are supposed to be hovering
in this vicinity have not, as yet, attempted to cross the Potomac.
Indeed, I have no idea that they will ever make the attempt.
The presumption is that the main body of the Rebels have left this
section, leaving only scouts and pickets. It
is reported they have a large force at Halltown, four miles from Harper's Ferry,
and also at Charlestown. In their
recent attack they had two objects in view.
One was to drive General Banks from the valley of Virginia, and the other
to obtain possession of the growing crops of wheat which are most promising.
The first they accomplished, but I predict that long, before the grain is
matured our forces will again be in possession of their old camping grounds.
Heretofore, our men have been careful not to encroach upon the private
property of the Rebel sympathizers. When
they return they may not be so lenient.
Our men are refreshed and anxious to return to retrieve their losses.
The retreat has proven but an additional incentive to their patriotism
and ardor, and they pant for the moment to arrive when they can again cross the
river and inflict condign punishment upon the murderous fiends.
Stragglers still continue to arrive, and the list of causalities, is
therefore, considerable diminished. So
constant are the accessions that corrections in the regimental reports have been
numerous. The brigade commanders
will hand in their reports to-day to General Banks, and a full official account
of the memorial two days will be presented to the War Department immediately.
The distance walked by some of the patients in the Strasburg and
Winchester hospitals is astonishing. The
large majority traversed the entire route from those points to Williamsport, and
not a few in the excitement, forget they were invalids, and have not yet
remembered why they were in the hospital. In
one of their buildings in Strasburg where about four hundred of General Shields'
command, left behind when the General moved southward.
The Medical office in charge quietly moved into the wards as soon as he
received notice of the projected retreat, and observed:
"Well, boys! All that are well enough to march had better leave as the
enemy are immediately upon us:" An
Irishman in the corner, hastily rising from his seat, remarked to his comrades,
they had better be "after movin'," and taking up the line of march, all who
could left for Winchester, and thence for Williamsport.
Which point, although may had previously professed their inability to
march or carry a musket, they reached two hours before our advance.
A sovereign cure for all the fancied ills which a soldier is heir to is a
retreat. It rarely fails.
Since Sunday seventy-eight members of the Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania
Regiment have come in, leaving the number of killed, wounded and missing in the
regiment, thus far ascertained, just two hundred.
The officers and men of the Twenty-ninth, and also the Forty-sixth, lost
almost all of their clothing and baggage, and the Twenty-ninth also find a
number of their muskets missing. Requisitions
upon the Quartermaster and Commissary have been made, and in a few days all will
be supplied.
Instances of personal gallantry are constantly repeated to me, while the
heroism of the wounded is without parallel.
When Hampton, the commander of the celebrated Hampton's Battery
(Pennsylvania), found himself cut off from his battery, near Middletown, he at
short intervals would halt his forge, which had accidentally detrained, and,
ordering the men to go through the same evolutions as if it was a gun, rammed
and charged with a will, keeping the enemy back, and finally, by the ruse,
saving himself and companions from capture.
A full report of the killed wounded and missing in the 46th
Pa. Regiment is given, as follows:
Killed, 2; wounded 37; total 114; missing, 2
camp officers; aggregate, 116.
Captain Cyrus Strouse, Company K, and Second
Lieutenant Alexander W. Selfridge, Company H, missing.
The following is a complete list of the officers and privates of the
companies of Colonel Murphy's Regiment, who were at the Battle of Front Royal,
and who have returned safely to camp:
Captain D. M. Lane, Corporal E. Lewis, Sergeant W. Harrington, Corporal
T. Holloway, Privates W. Geddis, S. Goule, J. Dougherty, C. Mallor, H. Atholt,
W. McLaughlin, J. Luthinburg, E. Colton, D. Amsted, P. McGowen and T. Pay.
The Methodist Protestant Church in this place is now used for surgical
cases, and is under the charge of Dr. J. Edward Warmer, of Baltimore.
The men recline upon the pews and are properly attended to my male and
female nurses.
Among the missing officers are Captain Charles B. Penrose, of
Philadelphia, and Capt. Crittenden of the Quartermaster's Department.
Both, however, are confidently believed to be well, although prisoners.
It is estimated that at least five thousand contrabands accompanied our
army on its return. Many brought
valuable horses with them, while the number of wagons confiscated by them is
very large. The negroes at first
occupied the fields and roadside near Williamsport, but yesterday they took up
the line of march for Chambersburg and Carlisle.
FIRST
BRIGADE--ACTING BRIGADIER GEN. DONNELLY.
Forty-sixth Pennsylvania Regiment
– 3 killed, 37 wounded and 76 missing.
Twenty-eighth New York – 2
wounded, 79 missing.
Fifth Connecticut – 1 killed, 12
wounded and 9 missing.
Total – 4 killed, 47 wounded and
251 missing.
THIRD
BRIGADE-- ACTING BRIGADIER-GEN. GORDEN.
Twenty-seventh Indiana – 3 killed,
17 wounded and 104 missing.
Twenty-ninth Pennsylvania – 2
killed, 5 wounded and 167 missing.
Company G, is not included in above,
but it is said to have 2 officers and 70 privates missing.
Second Massachusetts – 13 killed,
47 wounded and 80 missing.
Third Wisconsin – 4 killed, 11
wounded and 80 missing.
Cothran's New York Battery – 2
killed, 3 wounded and 4 missing.
Officers
– Captain Mudge and Lieutenant Crowinshield, of the Second
Massachusetts; Captain Robb
and Wilcoxsen, and Lieutenant Van Buskirk, of the Twenty-seventh
Indiana; Lieut. Bently, of the Third Wisconsin; and Lieutenants Hodgkins
and Winegar, of the Battery, are wounded, Major Dwight and Surgeons
Leland and Stone of the Second Massachusetts;
Captain Hammer and Lieutenant Spencer, of the Third Wisconsin;
Colonel Murphy and Lieutenants Linton, Goldsmith, Johnson, and McGuigan
are missing.
Best's
Battery also lost one killed, two wounded and two missing, and Dr.
Adolphus is also missing.
The lists
of casualties in the cavalry regiments have not thus far been able to
obtain. The First Vermont
Cavalry suffered probably most severely.
Their loss is eight killed, thirteen wounded, and one hundred two
missing. Among the latter
are Major Collins and Captain Bean, both of whom are supposed to be
killed. The commander of
this regiment is Colonel Tompkins the gallant officer who some months
since made the brilliant dash into Fairfax Court House.
The rebel
regiments which suffered most during Sunday's fight, was pronounced by
one of their wounded, to be the Twenty-seventh North Carolina.
The Forty-sixth Pennsylvania and Fifth Connecticut mowed them
down, as they advanced, like grass before the scythe.
Strange to say, although Jackson's army has been composed
heretofore of Virginia troops, prisoners now state that no soldiers from
the Old Dominion were in the recent engagements, although Jackson
himself was there.
