The War News.
The rumor which so extensively prevailed yesterday morning, that
Grant was withdrawing from the front of
Petersburg, was not confirmed by accounts received last night by the
Petersburg train.
Our information is that, beyond the usual shelling, nothing of importance occurred yesterday.
Yankee depredations in King and Queen and King William.
A letter from a lady in
King and Queen county to a friend in this city gives additional particulars of the recent depredations of the
Yankees in that section.
With a view to the preservation of a record of their mode of conducting warfare, we make some extracts: "The fifth Sunday in May
Grant's army commenced passing through the county, crossing at
Dunkirk.
For five days they were within two miles of us, near enough to see the camp fires and hear the drums and music; but only four visited us, took two mules and left.
Our neighbors did not fare so well.
Mrs. Smith,
Mrs. Fauntleroy,
Dr. Fauntleroy,
Dr. Fleet and others were robbed of everything with the exception of a few negroes.
Mr. Wm. Boulware's elegant residence they burned to the ground.
From
Mr. John Fauntleroy in King William they took all his negroes, but one child twelve months old, all his cattle, horses, sheep, corn, wheat, bacon and fowls; and
Mr. Boggs they treated worse, for, in addition to the above they took his own, his wife's and children's clothing, and broke up everything in the house.
They had a negro regiment encamped in old
Mrs. Fauntleroy's yard.
Mrs. Sterling had to cook for some of the
Yankees for two days, and they were very insulting.
They took forty-five negroes from
Mrs. Smith, and twenty-five from
Tom Fauntleroy.***
Grant's army moved on to the
Chickahominy, and we were left in fancied security for nearly two weeks; but last Thursday we heard that
Sheridan was at
Newtown, making his way to the
White House; and on Friday evening not less than eight hundred of his gang were here.
They broke in and took every piece of meat but ten, and four of those I begged them for after they took them on their horses; took every horse and mule on the place, seven in number; searched every room in the house five or six times; took every ounce of butter, two barrels of flour, all of our molasses and honey, and broke open the bee-hives; stole a great many fowls, and actually took a hen off the nest that she had been setting two weeks, and sucked the eggs!
Yesterday evening we saw the scenes of Friday again enacted.
Over a thousand were here, ransacking every hole and corner.
They took nearly all of our corn, but found little to eat. Out of the two thousand I did not see more than two gentlemen.
The officers were no better than the privates, and some were very impudent.
I spoke my mind very freely to every one, feeling no fear, but gave them word for word.
One said to me--"Don't you wish every d — n Yankee was in hell?" I told him "Yes, provided they could not get to a worse place; but my opinion was that hell was too good for them." He said "God had nothing to do with them; that they had neither souls nor hearts."
Another letter gives a further detail of outrages, and the writer says she "did not think it possible for me to hate any one as much as I do the
Yankees." That is the impression these "Union-savers" are leaving upon the minds of our people everywhere.
A friend in
Harrisonburg,
Rockingham county, writes that a few days ago that sterling Confederate officer,
Capt. John H
McNeil, attacked more than a hundred Yankees with some eighty of his rangers at
Springfield,
Hampshire county.
Capt. McNeill killed and mortally wounded five of the enemy, captured fifty-seven, and one hundred and four very fine horses.
His loss was only two horses killed — men all unhurt.
The prisoners and horses have reached
Harrisonburg.
The writer adds:
‘
It seems almost unnecessary to repeat what has so often been said with propriety and justice, that
Capt. McNeill does as efficient service as any other officer in the
Southern command.
With his company of partisan rangers of not more than 80 or 90 men within the past year he has captured some 600 or 800 (perhaps 1,000) prisoners, killed and disabled more Yankees than his entire command, and in arms and ammunition, stores, and horses, his captures have been
very large. He has also destroyed immensely in property and stores of the enemy.
Many persons in this section of country, and upon the result of their own knowledge and observation, entertain the opinion that the efficiency of this valuable force would he greatly added to by increasing it to a battalion of five hundred men at least, and the promotion of the gallant commander to at least the rank of a
Lieut Colonel.
It must be borne in mind that this last affair of the
Captain's is only one of many equally daring and successful in character, performed through a series of many months.
Singular to add, the
Captain has very rarely lost a man killed, wounded or captured.
’
A dispatch from
Marietta says that unusual quiet prevailed along the lines on the 29th, the enemy being permitted to bury their fast purifying dead.
As the facts of
Gen. Hardee's great victory are brought to light, they prove that it was at first much underrated.
The enemy admit a loss of fifteen hundred in front of
Cleburne's Division, and a loss in killed along the front of that and
Cheatham's Division of seven hundred and fifty. Five hundred ambulances were counted from the summit of
Kennesaw mountain transporting their wounded to Big Shanty from in front of
Gen. Hardee's Corps — their loss along the line of that corps is estimated at four thousand, and about the same in front of
Gen. Loring's.
The Yankee
Generals Dan. McCook and
Harker were certainly killed.
The latest advices we have from
Charleston are to the 25th ult, the three hundred and fifty third day of the "siege." Matters were progressing pretty much as usual, and the city and
Fort Sumter continued to hurl back defiance to the insolent foe. Fifty-six shots were fired at the city during the twenty-four hours ending at six o'clock on the previous evening.
A desultory fire had also been kept up between battery Gregg and our batteries on
Sullivan's and Janies Islands.
Heavy firing was heard in the direction of
Stono, which was believed to have been the enemy's gunboats shelling
Secessionville.
The working parties work still busy on the lower batteries and battery Wagner.
There had been no further change in the fleet.
