Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 37.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[189] demonstration of a regular line of battle before Newport News with the purpose of drawing out the enemy at that place, but the enemy failed to appear. He afterwards made a like demonstration near Hampton to draw the enemy from Old Point to make an attact, but the enemy failed to appear. On the 7th of August Gen. Magruder ordered Col. Hodges to report to him at Newmarket bridge. Col. Hodges reached there about 9 o'clock P. M. when Gen. Magruder ordered to his command two other infantry companies and two companies of cavalry, and directed him to proceed to Hampton and destroy the town. He reached Hampton about 11 P. M. He found everything there as still as death, and not a sound to be heard excepting the sound of the horses feet and occasionally the clanking of a sabre. He marched his men to St. John's Church yard, dismounted his cavalry and sent a picket guard to the bridge leading to Old Point. Here the enemy's picket guard opened fire, and for some time there was an active firing, but no serious harm was done and the enemy withdrew. Then the work of destroying the town commenced. Col. Hodges, in his account of his expedition to his wife, says:

‘It grieved me sorely to have to destroy the town, but I believe it is all for the best, as it embarrasses the enemy very much and takes from them elegant winter quarters whilst our troops will have to suffer in log huts and tents. I went into many houses which formerly had been well taken care of; the furniture was broken to pieces and scattered all through the houses. They were filled with filth of every description, and most obscene expressions written all over the walls. If I had lived and owned a house there I would willingly have applied the torch to it rather than have had it desecrated in the way the whole town had been.’

The regiment was afterwards stationed for a while at Mulberry Island, and also at Lands End. In May, 1862, it was ordered to Suffolk and was there made a part of Armistead's brigade. On the reorganization of regiments in the spring of 1862 Adjutant Evans was made Lieutenant Colonel and C. W. Finley was made Adjutant of the Fourteenth Virginia regiment; and Lieutenant Colonel David J. Godwin was made Colonel of the Ninth Virginia regiment. The brigade now marched to