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1 He states in his official Report that the chief of his secret service corps, Mr. E. J. Allen, reported, on the 8th of March, that the forces of the Rebel Army of the Potomac at that date were as follows:
At Manassas, Centerville, Bull Run, Upper Occoquan, and vicinity | 80,000 | men. |
At Brooks's Station, Dumfries, Lower Occoquan, and vicinity | 18,000 | men. |
At Leesburg and vicinity | 4,500 | men. |
In the Shenandoah Valley | 13,000 | men. |
Total number | 115,500 | men. |
2 The writer visited, early in January, Gen. Wadsworth, in his camp near Ball's Cross-Roads; when, on this point, Gen. W. said: “I see and examine all deserters and contrabands who reach us from the Rebel camps in our front; and their testimony convinces me that they have but fifty or sixty regiments in all-certainly not over 50,000 men.” This, of course, did not include outlying detachments, whether at and toward Winchester or below the Occoquan.
Most Rebel writers who touch this point, and British officers who served with or visited the Rebel army during the ensuing campaign, were unanimous in making their total effective force during that Winter less than 50,000.3 Jan. 30.
For the space of three weeks before the army left its intrenchments at Manassas, preparations were being made for falling back to the line of the Rappahannock, by the quiet and gradual removal of the vast accumulations of army stores; and, with such consummate address was this managed, that our own troops had no idea of what was intended until the march was taken up. The first intimation the enemy had of the evacuation of Manassas was the smoke of the soldiers' huts that had been fired by our army.
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