The Yankee advance — a change of Base.
. . .
Our scouts were busy during the day in the country below the city,
but did not gather much information that we have had access to. At one
time the report was that the enemy were at Diascund bridge and numbered
23,000.
This report, it was said, might be relied upon.
We conversed with an intelligent gentleman, who was a prisoner within
the enemy's lines on Friday, but, after being paroled, made his escape
and walked to Richmond.
He was captured Friday morning while within a short distance of the
Pamunkey river, near Cumberland.
The Dutch Yankee who arrested him carried him to the headquarters of
General Keyes, who was in command of the division which landed at the
White House.
The division was drawn up in line of battle.
He reached the headquarters near
New Kent C. H., and upon being carried before the commanding General was closely
questioned.
During the examination, Gen. Keyes spoke several times in a very
boastful manner of the ease which he would enter Richmond.--He said that
Wise was "a d — d old coward," that Wise had challenged him for a fight
anywhere between Williamsburg and Richmond, and that now he had come
Wise had run away.
The officers at headquarters participated in the confidence of their
braggart chief, with the addition of the lie that they had 50,000 men.
Our informant, who is a soldier himself, says he thinks they had about
15,000 men — cavalry, artillery, and infantry.
He counted sixteen pieces of artillery.
They claimed to have a brigade of cavalry, but he only saw two
regiments.
The infantry was composed chiefly of foreigners, the Dutch
predominating.
After being paroled the prisoner was allowed to go at large, and escaped
by way of Charles City county, arriving in this city yesterday morning.
By the evening train on the York River road we have the latest
intelligence of the movements of the enemy.
Saturday evening the force from Diascund bridge, in James City county,
arrived at the White House, after a march of 15 miles. That evening a
Lieut.-Colonel, who was with McClellan while he occupied that point,
made a visit to the farm of a lady near by and stated in conversation
that the Federal force on the Peninsula numbered about 11,000, and was
under the command of Gens. Keyes and Gordon, the former being chief.
Persons who saw them at the
The Yankees have committed very few depredations in
New Kent,
but on Friday a raid was made by them across the Pamunkey into King
William, during which they destroyed a good deal of property and carried
off a large number of negroes.
The soldiers making this incursion into the country were carried over
from the White House in gunboats, and returned with their plunder by the
same conveyance.
A report was in circulation here on Saturday that a body of Federal had
been seen or the Mechanicsville road, nine miles from Mechanicsville.
From all the facts, we conclude that Keyes, with about 5,000 men,
came up the Pamunkey, landed at the White House, and proceeded to the
vicinity of
New Kent
C. H., from whence his cavalry raid on the Central Railroad at Hanover
C. H. was made.
Gordon marched from Yorktown and took up his position at Diascund Bridge
with about the same number of men, and on Friday advanced and formed a
junction with Keyes's division, after which on Saturday, both divisions
marched to the White House.
What will be their next move it is of course impossible to know, but the
general opinion of those who came up on the York River train yesterday
evening was that they intended to embark for Yorktown.
. . .
-from the Richmond
Daily Dispatch, June 29 1863
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