latitude for any further operations.
By half-past 2 o'clock Sunday morning, May third, the several expeditions had started.
The moon was shining brightly, the roads were comparatively good, and for once in the history of the war, every thing was in harmony.
Colonel Wyndham, of the First New-Jersey cavalry, with his own and the First Maine regiments--in all about five hundred men, took a southerly direction, and crossing Owen's Creek, Licking Hole Creek, Little Licking Hole Creek. Little Byrd Creek, and several other creeks, reached Columbia, on the James River, at about eight o'clock A. M. The approach of the force had been heralded, but no one believed it. The man who went to the trouble of riding ten miles to give the inhabitants notice, was almost mobbed by the people — they doubted his sanity.
What I! Yankees near Columbia?
said one citizen.
It is impossible; Jeff Davis would not permit such an invasion of the sacred soil.
The furnisher of the unwelcome news had dirt thr
alf of their supplies are received — so that, in the opinion of competent judges, neither line, provided the rebels have every facility for the work, can be repaired in less than four weeks; destroyed millions of dollars' worth of commissary stores, and other supplies; obstructed travel upon the main pikes, by destroying all bridges over large streams; gave the citizens of ten counties, namely, Culpeper, Spottsylvania, Orange, Hanover, Henrico, Louisa, Goochland, Fluvanna, King William, and New-Kent, an opportunity to see for themselves that not only are the Yankee soldiers confident and in good spirits, but are really human beings and not inhuman savages, as represented by the Richmond chivalry; captured hundreds of horses, and above all met the one great objection made to the Emancipation Proclamation, so far as the counties visited are concerned, by letting the colored population know that they are free, and weakening the producing class in rebeldom by the removal of hundreds of abl
