--The Wilmington
Journal gives the following version of the queer affair which occurred at
Boonville, related by who knows the facts:
‘
So quietly had all the arrangements for the evacuation of
Corinth been made, that
Halleck was completely fooled, and in perfect ignorance of what was going on, so that, suspecting no such immediate movement on our part, he had secretly dispatched a body of troops, mainly cavalry, with the object of reaching, by a wide circuit, a point on the
Mobile and Ohio Road in the rear of
Corinth, and of destroying some bridges, with the view of interrupting our communication.
A mer dash and away.
Preparatory to the evacuation, a number of our sick, amounting in all to about fifteen hundred, with an escort of about two hundred well men, bad been sent down from
Corinth to
Boonville.
The Yankee bridge-burning force suddenly came upon these sick men with their attendants, and had them all ranged in line ready to be carried off as prisoners, although many were so worn down by dysentery and diarrhoea as to be hardly able to stand.
While this affair was going on, so also was the evacuation of
Corinth, and just at the critical moment, the head of our retiring column came in sight of the
Yankees and their line of sick prisoners.
As if by magic the captors were gone.
They broke and took to horse and away.
The trembling line of sick prisoners seeing the
Yankee stampede, but not knowing its cause, stood a moment, and then sick, un armed, feeble, broke for the woods in another direction, most of them determined to avail themselves of any chance to escape captivity and a few, in their weak and nervous state, no doubt stampeded, they hardly knew why. This is about the story of the capture of our sick and wounded by the enemy.
and of our rescue of them.
The enemy may have done some damage to ears, etc., before they, in their turn, were surprised, last it was very trotting.
’