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is twenty-four miles from Leesburgh, and within eighteen of Pennsylvania.
Of the scene at the passage of the Potomac I have not time to speak, nor of the battle-field of Leesburgh.
Saunders, coming on in an independent way, captured the telegraph operator, turned him over to Gen. Jackson, and heard him send a message to Old Abe; after which the telegraph was destroyed, and the track of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad torn up. Stuart yesterday sent a message to Abe by another line.
I have seen the Baltimore Sun of today.
They are puzzling themselves as to whether we have really crossed.
I wish, my dear mother, I could better tell you of these great matters.
But it is easier for you to imagine how tired I am than for me to tell you. In the last thirty-six hours, I have slept two.
I am proud to have borne my humble part in these great operations — to have helped, even so little, to consummate the grand plan, whose history will be a text-book to all young soldiers, arid whose magnificent success places Lee at the side of the greatest captains, Hannibal, Caesar, Eugene, Napoleon.
I hope you have preserved my letters in which I have spoken of my faith in Lee. He and his round-table of generals are worthy the immortality of Napoleon and his Marshals.
He moves his agencies like a god--secret, complicated, vast, resistless, complete.
Richmond Examiner account.
Richmond, September 3, 1862.
Passengers by the Central Railroad, now almost our only source of information from our armies at Manassas, brought down with them yesterday evening no well-authenticated intelligence from the great battle of last Saturday.
At the time of their leaving Gordonsville it had been telegraphed thither from Rapidan station that participants in the battle had arrived at the latter place, bringing intelligence of the death of Sigel, the mortal wounding of Generals Pope and McDowell, and the capture by our army of seven or nine thousand prisoners. This is all we could gain of a later date than Thursday, the twenty-eighth.
But among the passengers were several gentlemen who participated in the fight of Thursday.
From them we have the first intelligible, though neither full nor satisfactory, account of the locality of the great three days battle, and the positions occupied respectively by the opposing forces.
The battle was fought on the plains of Manassas, our forces occupying the identical positions occupied by the enemy at the beginning of the ever-memorable battle of the twenty-first of July, 1861, and the enemy occupying the positions held by us on that occasion.
We will lay before the reader the account we have received of the movements by which we took this position, and the battle that ensued on the day subsequent to our occupancy.
On Monday Gen. A. P. Hill moved down from Salem along the Manassas Gap Railroad, and on Tuesday took possession of Manassas Junction, capturing several hundred prisoners and eight or ten guns.
Gen. Ewell followed General Hill, and Gen. Taliaferro, commanding Gen. Jackson's old division, followed Gen. Ewell. Gen. Taliaferro reached Manassas on Wednesday evening, just as the troops of Ewell and Hill were evacuating that position and falling back towards Bull Run, in the direction of Centreville.
General Taliaferro occupied Manassas, and made a show of throwing out heavy pickets towards the enemy, who was at Bristow station, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, five miles distant in a southwesterly direction, but directly after nightfall calling in his pickets.
He then fell back towards Centreville and took a position near Groveton, where he remained all night.
His position was to the right of Generals Hill and Ewell.
At dawn the next (Thursday) morning, occasional reports of cannon and musketry began to be heard towards the left, which was kept up at intervals until evening.
Still no enemy had yet been on the portion of the field occupied by Gen. Taliaferro's division; but about five o'clock P. M. they were suddenly borne down upon by several heavy columns of the enemy, numbering, it was estimated, twenty thousand men. The fight was opened on both sides with artillery; at first at long-range, but gradually the enemy drew up his batteries to our lines.
By six o'clock the distance between the combatants had been reduced to musket-range, and the fight along the whole line of Taliaferro's, Ewell's, and Hill's divisions became general.
The enemy fought with great obstinacy, being inspired, it is thought, by the supposition that they had caught Gen. Jackson in small force, and had an opportunity of crushing him. But, as often as they charged our lines, they were driven back with thinned ranks, without being able to move us from our position.
Finally night closed over the scene, and the enemy retired from the conflict.
The battle was, however, kept up until nine o'clock by the artillerists on both sides.
Our men rested on their position that night, and on Friday morning moved forward a mile in the direction of the enemy.
Our loss in this battle is estimated at between eight hundred and a thousand killed and wounded. The enemy's is known to have been more than double that number.
We note the few casualties that have come to our knowledge.
Gen. Taliaferro was struck three times in the beginning of the action, in the foot, neck, and arm. The first two were very slight, but the last a painful though not dangerous wound.
The General continued in command until the close of the action.
Gen. Ewell was shot through the knee with a Minie ball.
The bones were so badly shattered as, in the opinion of his surgeons, to render amputation necessary.
When our informant saw him he was being borne from the field on a litter to a hospital in the direction of Aldie, preparatory to the operation.
Major Lawson Botts, of the Twenty-second Virginia, received a dangerous but, it is thought, not a mortal wound, from a Minie ball, which entered 