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made a successful raid into the counties lying on the sounds in Virginia and North Carolina, capturing and dispersing organized guerillas.
December 4, Brigadier-General Wilde, at the head of two regiments of colored troops, overran all the counties as far as Chowan River, releasing some two thousand slaves and inflicting much damage upon the enemy.
December 13, Brigadier-General Wistar sent a force from Williamsburg to Charles City Court-House and captured two companies of rebel cavalry, being the outposts of Richmond.
The force was gallantly led by Col. Robert West.
The army being much in need of recruits, and Eastern Virginia claiming to be a fully organized loyal State, by permission of the President an enrolment of all the able-bodied loyal citizens of Virginia within my command was ordered for the purposes of a draft, when one should be called for in the other loyal States.
This order was vigorously protested against by Governor Pierpont, and this was all the assistance the United States ever received from the loyal government of Virginia in defending the State.
My predecessors in command had endeavored to recruit a regiment of loyal Virginians, but after many months of energetic trial, both by them and by myself, the attempt was abandoned.
A company and a half was all the recruits that State would furnish to the Union, and these were employed in defending the lighthouses and protecting the loyal inhabitants from the outrages of their immediate neighbors.
January 25, 1864, the roads being impassable, Brigadier-General Graham, with some armed transports, went up the James River to Lower Brandon and destroyed a large quantity of provisions and forage stored there, and captured some smuggling vessels.
Major-General Pickett, of the Confederate forces, made an attack upon New Berne and our lines at Beaufort, N. C., on the 1st of February, but was cleverly repulsed with loss, Brigadier-General Palmer commanding the district.
By a surprise of an outpost, fifty-three of the Second North Carolina (loyal) Regiment were captured by General Pickett.
By his order they were tried by court martial and twenty-two of them were hanged.
Their supposed offence was that they, being enrolled in the Confederate army, had enlisted in the Union army.
Upon
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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