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a raid-celerity of movement.
A raid is an advance far into an enemy's country, where, at very short notice, vastly superior forces can be hurled against the invading party.
The only hope for success in such a movement depends upon the surprise of the invaded, the suddenness of the blow, and ere he has time to recover and collect his forces, the rapidity of return to the original base, where the parties are on a nearly equal footing.
Now, did
General Hunter move in accordance with this requisite?
General Crook, with his command, joined him at
Staunton, Wednesday noon, June eighth, where he had been resting his men two days. Already, among the rebels, it was believed that
Lynchburg was the point at which we were aiming.
Yet we lay at
Staunton until Friday morning, the tenth, and by short, easy marches, entered
Lexington on the evening of the eleventh, and rested here until Tuesday morning, the fourteenth.
By this time belief in the rebel mind had become certainty, and we heard that they were taking the
Lynchburg stores to
Danville, and making preparations to resist us at
Lynchburg.
Lexington is only forty-one miles distant from
Lynchburg by the direct route.
General Crook here implored permission to march his own gallant Kanawha division by this road, and surprise and take
Lynchburg, in accordance with his own raid-like custom; but he was refused, and compelled to march with what he knew was almost fatal slowness.
Instead of taking the direct route,
General Hunter leads us off to Liberty, by way of
Buchanan, both trifling places, in neither of which did we gain any peculiar advantage, taking us by two sides of a triangle instead of the shorter line.
Now, notice the result of all this delay of four days, and how it defeated our design against
Lynchburg.
We arrived at
Lynchburg Friday afternoon, attacked and drove the rebels two miles, and only halted with the coming night.
During the night the heavy reinforcements.
from
Richmond, a division under
Early, arrived in
Lynchburg, having been just five days on the way. This latter fact we have ascertained from undoubted testimony.
With these reinforcements, the army in
Lynchburg far outnumbered ours, and that too, with the addition of strong breastworks, rifle-pits and forts.
In such a situation but one course is left, and that is, speedy and cautious retreat.
Well, the retreat is begun, and certainly no complaint can be made of delay or idling in this part of the march.
Then, furthermore, look at the disgraceful loss of artillery to a paltry pack of guerrillas, not quite two hundred in all, what more, or rather less, could be expected than that such a loss would of necessity follow from the disposition made of the batteries, in what seemed to be more especially
Hunter's command, of the First division.
They were made a separate train, just as our wagons.
Attempts had been made to induce
General Crook, to run the same risk with his batteries, but in the absence of any positive orders, he managed to avoid it.
Such, then, seems to me to be the cause of our failure to take
Lynchburg.
General Hunter, although a good officer of high education, is not the man to “go on a raid.”
Confederate Narratives.
Lynchburg Virginian account.
The line of battle extended from about half a mile above the toll-gate (two and a half miles from
Lynchburg), on the
Lynchburg and Salem turnpike.
The distance embraced by this line must be two and a half to three miles.
Dr. E. H. Murrell, who was in a good position to observe a portion of the fight, has informed us that a battery stationed on
Halsey's farm did great execution.
He distinctly saw a large body of cavalry, which he supposed to be about four thousand, drawn up in line of battle in
Captain Barksdale's field, on the
Forest road.
They charged upon our fortifications with great spirit, yelling defiance, and at the top of their voices, which were borne to the point where the doctor stood concealed, he heard them cry “Come out of your holes, you----rebels; we've got you now I come out of your holes.”
When these infuriated wretches got within reach of our grape and canister, our boys let fly a volley at them, which did terrible execution.
Two other volleys were poured into them, when they broke and fled.
The battle ended on Saturday afternoon, and the enemy retreated in great haste on Saturday night. Had they remained until the next day, we are satisfied, from the dispositions that had been made by General-----, that they would have been captured.
Their safety is not now an assured fact by any means.
We rode over the battle-field on Sunday, observing the results of the previous day's work.
On two or three contiguous fields, on the farm of
Dr. Owen and
John B. Lee, we counted some forty odd dead Yankees, who lay stiff, and stark, and nude, a spectacle of horrors.
They had been denuded, it was said, by their particular friends, gentlemen of “
African descent.”
Most of them were supposed to be sharpshooters, who fell in advance of the enemy's lines, and quite near to our rifle-pits and intrenchments.
Fully three fourths of them were shot through the head, and others through the heart, thus showing the accuracy of that unerring aim which sent them to their last account.
Some of them were fierce-looking heavily-bearded cutthroats, while a few were smooth-faced boys.
We noticed one who seemed to be a stripling of scarce seventeen summers.
On the left of the
Salem turnpike, near the left of the
Quaker meeting-house, we saw five graves.
The wooden boards placed at their heads stated that these were all killed on Friday, the seventeenth.
On the other side of the road a man was laid out
