On the 5th of June, Hunter had obtained a success at Piedmont, in Western Virginia, and had effected the capture of Staunton; the saddest circumstance of which affair was the loss of General Jones, one of the most distinguished cavalry commanders of the Confederacy.*

After occupying Staunton, Hunter had formed a junction with the combined forces of Crook and Averill, and on the 13th of June was reported to be moving with his whole command against Lynchburg. On the 7th, Sheridan had crossed the Pamunkey, and was moving eastward in the direction of the Gordonsville Railroad. The main movement of the new combination-that of Grant across the James-commenced Sunday night the 12th of June.

The first plan of the enemy had comprehended the advance of Sigel down the Shenandoah, and the capture of Petersburg, if nothing more, by Butler, while General Grant engaged Lee's army between the Rapidan and Richmond. That plan having signally failed, the second comprised the capture of Lynchburg by Hunter, of Gordonsville and Charlottesville by Sheridan, and of Petersburg by Meade. It was thus hoped to isolate the Confederate capital by cutting off its communications on every side.

It was, perhaps, not Grant's design to cross the river until he had made some attempt on the Central and New Market roads, leading into Richmond from the direction of Malvern

* A correspondent thus writes of this officer-whose eccentricities were almost as well-known to Virginians as those of Stonewall Jackson: "General Jones was a captain in the United States Army, ranking Stuart. A small, thin, black-eyed and whiskered man, he dressed very plainly, bordering on shabbiness; never shaved, never in uniform, no insignia of office. He had a fine, squeaking voice; was misanthropic, despising parade and every man that indulged in it; never courting any man's favor; never, perhaps, speaking to a congressman or the President, since the war commenced; fearing no manreverencing no man; speaking freely, if not curtly, to and of everybody. He was a widower. When stationed in Texas he lost his wife, an accomplished lady, by shipwreck in Galveston Bay; since which he has never married again, and has seemed, if not to wish for death, at least to hold his life very cheaply. He was cool in a fight, and the bravest of the brave. With hat in hand, he was cheering his men when he fell, pierced through his head by a minnie ball. The enemy refused his body. Some citizens buried him in a neat coffin, and marked the spot."

Hill. On the 13th of June he caused a reconnoissance in force to be made from the Long Bridge towards the Quaker road, and in an affair, near the intersection of this road with the Charles City road, was repulsed, and drew off his force, well satisfied that the Confederates held, with heavy forces, all the roads by which Richmond could be reached from the southeast.

The Eighteenth Yankee corps had proceeded by water to Bermuda Hundred. The remaining corps had crossed the Chickahominy at James Bridge and Long Bridge; and after the reconnoissance of the 13th, proceeded down the James, and crossed it in the neighborhood of City Point.

THE BATTLES OF PETERSBURG.

Petersburg had already sustained a considerable attack of the enemy. An expedition from Butler's lines had essayed its capture on the 9th of June.

Approaching with nine regiments of infantry and cavalry, and at least four pieces of artillery, the enemy searched our lines a distance of nearly six miles. Hood's and Battles' hattalions, the Forty-sixth Virginia, one company of the Twentythird South Carolina, with Sturdevant's battery, and a few guns in position, and Talliaferro's cavalry, kept them at bay. The Yankees were twice repulsed, but succeeded, at last, in penetrating a gap in our line; when reinforcements coming up drove back the insolent foe from approaches which their footsteps for the first time polluted.

The fortunate issue of this first attack on Petersburg encouraged the raw troops and militia who had been put under arms for the defence of "the Cockade City." General Wise addressed the troops of his command in a memorable and thrilling order. "Petersburg," said he, "is to be, and shall be, defended on her outer walls, on her inner lines, at her corporation bounds, in every street, and around every temple of God and

altar of man."

The resolution of the gallant city-with its defences reinforced by the fortunate Beauregard-was now to be put to a much more severe test, for it was to encounter the shock of the bulk of Grant's army.

Smith's corps, having disembarked at Bermuda Hundred on the 14th, moved rapidly upon Petersburg, and made an assault on the batteries covering the approaches to the city on the northeast. Having got possession of this line of works, held principally by Confederate militia, Smith waited the coming up of the Second Corps.

On the evening of the 16th an attack was ordered on the Confederate line of works in front of Petersburg, Smith's corps being on the right, on the Petersburg and City Point road, west of the railroad, the Second Corps in the centre, and Burnside on the left, reaching the Prince George Courthouse road. The assault was not only repulsed at every point, but our troops, assuming the aggressive, drove the Yankees from their breast works at Howlett's House, captured some of their guns, and opened upon them an enfilading fire, under which they fled precipitately.

The most furious assault of the enemy had been made on General Hoke's front, whose division occupied a position facing batteries from Nine to Twelve inclusive. Three different charges were repulsed by these heroic troops. In the final repulse of the enemy, a large portion of a Yankee brigade, being exposed to an enfilading artillery fire from our guns, sought shelter in a ravine, and surrendered to the Sixty-fourth Georgia regiment.

On Friday, June 17th, fighting was renewed without result. The next day it was resolved by the enemy to make an assault along the whole line for the purpose of carrying the town. It was thus that the action of the 18th was designed to be decisive of operations in the present position.

Three different assaults were made by the enemy during the day-at four in the morning, at noon, and at four in the afternoon. Each one was repulsed. Hancock and Burnside in the centre suffered severely.

After severe losses on the part of all the Yankee corps, night found the Confederates still in possession of their works covering Petersburg.

The disaster of this day left Grant without hope of making any impression on the works in his front, and placed him under the necessity of yet another change of operations. The series of engagements before Petersburg had cost him at least ten

thousand men in killed and wounded, and had culminated in another decisive defeat.

The misfortune of the enemy appeared, indeed, to be overwhelming. Pickett's division had given him another lesson at Port Walthal Junction. It was here the heroes of Gettysburg repulsed a force under Gillmore engaged in destroying the railroad, took two lines of his breast works, and put him to disastrous flight.

Nor was there any compensation to be found in the auxiliary parts of Grant's second grand combination. Sheridan had failed to perform his part. He was intercepted by Hampton's cavalry at Trevillian Station on the Gordonsville road, defeated in an engagement on the 10th, and compelled to withdraw his command across the North Anna. Hunter had come to similar grief, and his repulse at Lynchburg involved consequences of the gravest disaster to the enemy.

On the 18th of June, Hunter made an attack upon Lynchburg from the south side, which was repulsed by troops that had arrived from General Lee's lines. The next day, more reinforcements having come up, preparations were made to attack the enemy, when he retreated in confusion. The Confederates took thirteen of his guns, pursued him to Salem, and forced him to a line of retreat into the mountains of Western Virginia. The attempt of the Yankees to whitewash the infamous and cowardly dénouement was more than usually refreshing. Hunter officially announced that his expedition had been "extremely successful;" that he had left Lynchburg because "his ammunition was running short ;" and that as to the singular line he had taken up, he was now "ready for a move in any direction."

In the mean time General Morgan had done his part in breaking up the enemy's combination in Western Virginia. General Jones being ordered from the extreme Southwest, together with all the troops he could transport, to Staunton at the very time that Southwest Virginia was about to be invaded by Burbridge, General Morgan held a brief and hasty conference with him on the eve of his departure, in which it was agreed by both generals that it would be in vain to meet Burbridge in front, and that, as the enemy had much more to lose in Kentucky than we had in Virginia, the only chance of

saving the Southwest was by Morgan's dashing boldly into the heart of Kentucky, and in that way drawing Burbridge away. This plan was carried into effect, and completely succeeded. Burbridge was lured back, his army scattered and crippled, Southwest Virginia saved for the time, and the discomfited general set to reorganizing his command,—a task which occupied him until the necessities of General Sherman rendered all available reinforcements from Kentucky needful at Chattanooga.

These latter movements all took place in the first part of June, after the date of the battle of Cold Harbor. They were designed by Grant as auxiliary to his own movement upon Petersburg, and were a material part of the comprehensive plan he had formed for completely isolating Richmond. When these important movements west of the Blue Ridge, which had their focus at Lynchburg, are considered in connection with Sheridan's great raid in the same central direction, and with the enterprises of Wilson and Kautz against the Danville and Weldon railroads, all of them auxiliary to Grant's attempt upon Petersburg, we are obliged to accord to the enemy's plan of campaign for June, the merit of unusual grasp and ability. Thanks to the miracles of Providence wrought for us on the west of the Blue Ridge, and to the valor of our soldiers and skill of our generals, so eminently displayed on the east, these formidable movements, to encircle and overwhelm the capital of the Confederacy and the State of Virginia, had completely failed.

And yet the measure of misfortune in Grant's distracted campaign appeared to be not yet full. On the 22d of June he made a movement on his left to get possession of the Weldon Railroad, but found the Confederates had extended their right to meet him. While the Second and the Sixth corps of Grant's army were attempting to communicate in this movement, the Confederates, under General Anderson, pierced the centre, captured a battery of four guns, and took prisoners one entire brigade, General Pearce's, and part of another.

Another attempt or raid on the railroad, by Wilson's and Kautz's divisions of cavalry, terminated in disaster. In the neighborhood of Spottswood River, twenty-five miles south of Petersburg, on the 28th, the expedition was attacked, cut in two, the greater part of its artillery abandoned, and its wagon