Army scenes on the Chickahominy

Army scenes on the Chickahominy
Harper''s pictorial history of the Civil War. (Chicago : Star Publishing Co. 1866)

Monday, March 24, 2014

March Comes in Like a Lion- The last of the raiders

The last of the raiders — their retreat down the Peninsula.

In concluding our report yesterday we stated that the raiders had succeeded in effecting their escape by crossing the Pamunkey at Pining Tree. Subsequent information has satisfied us that this statement was erroneous, and that only a small portion of the enemy's forces crossed the Pamunkey in their retreat. The main body, after passing Old Church, in Hanover county, moved down into New Kent, on their way, doubt less, to Williamsburg.
Yesterday afternoon Col. Bradley T. Johnson, with about forty of his Marylanders, assisted by a detachment of the 9th Virginia cavalry, which had joined him, came up with their rear guard near Tunstall's Station, when a skirmish ensued, resulting in the capture of seventy of the raiders. This is probably the last heavy pull that will be made upon them, as it is understood that the remainder of the party had pushed on beyond New Kent Court House.
Thus ends the great raid which was designed for the destruction of Gen. Lee's communications and the liberation of the Yankee prisoners in Richmond. The injury to the communications with the Army of Northern Virginia can be repaired in three days, and, instead of releasing the prisoners already in our hands, they have added not less than two hundred and fifty to their numbers.

The Yankee Losses in killed and wounded.
It is somewhat difficult to ascertain the exact loss of the raiders in killed and wounded. It is thought that in the fights on Hick's and Green's farms they had seventeen killed, and it is known that they had not less than twenty wounded. In Hampton's night attack upon them, near Atlee's, he killed four or five and wounded as many more. In the several engagements which occurred they must have lost, at a low estimate, twenty five in killed and seventy wounded.

The loss in prisoners.
Their loss in prisoners will reach two hundred and fifty. Up to 7 o'clock yesterday evening one hundred and seventy had been booked at the Libby, and these did not include the seventy captured by Col. Johnston in the neighborhood of Tunstall's.
Their loss in horses and Equipments.
What their nett loss in horses will amount to cannot, of course, be estimated, as the number they stole in their line of march will go far to make up the number captured from them. They did not loss less than five hundred in killed and captured. Besides the horses they lost a Napoleon gun, many saddles, carbines, sabres, pistols, blankets, &c. Altogether the expedition was rather an expensive one to Kilpatrick's Government, taking into consideration the results accomplished

-The Daily Dispatch: March 4, 1864


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