Summary:
This letter from Union General John C. Fremont to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
describes May, 1862, action in Greenbriar County. Fremont reports that Col.
Crook's troops captured Confederate dispatches asking that Jackson send
reinforcements from Staunton.
Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
HEADQUARTERS, Franklin, Va.,
May 21, 1862.
Col. Crook, commanding brigade in Greenbrier County, has just returned from a successful dash upon the Central Railroad, 10 miles beyond Covington, at Jackson's River Depot. Dispatches were discovered at the telegraph office in Covington from the provost-marshal of Alleghany County, asking Gen. Jackson, at Staunton, for two or three regiments, and stating that he was endeavoring to raise the militia of Greenbrier and Moore. Answers were also found promising re-enforcements from Jackson by way of Staunton and from Floyd by way of Sweet Springs. To prevent any immediate advance from Staunton, Col. Crook proceeded from Covington, destroyed the railroad bridge 10 miles in advance of that place, and returned to Callaghan's, and thence of Lewisburg, bringing with him the notorious Capt. Sprigg and another guerrilla, captured after firing upon our troops. Gen. Heth is reported to have effected a junction with Gen. Floyd, and to be near Dublin, on the Tennessee Railroad.
J. C. FREMONT,
Maj.-Gen.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 12, Serial No. 15, Pages 804, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
