Summary:
Confederate General John Imboden reports to Robert E. Lee on September, 1863, operations
in western Virginia. Imboden discusses several skirmishes and their results. Imboden also
mentions hauling iron from Shenandoah to Staunton.
General R. E. LEE,
Commanding Army of Northern Virginia.
NEAR BROOKS' GAP,
September 13, 1863.
GENERAL:
I have the honor to report the following operations of detachments of troops from my command during the past week:
1. Captain Burke and Lieutenant Wells, of Gilmor's battalion, being on picket below Newtown on the 6th (5th?) instant, marched their party of 11 men to Winchester, where they were joined by Captain Blackford, who is recruiting in the lower valley, with 15 men, making a total of 3 officers and 26 men. The party proceeded to, within 21 miles of Bath and spent Sunday, and that night at 2 o'clock surprised the enemy's camp at Bath, consisting of two companies Colonel Wynkoop's Pennsylvania cavalry, six-months' men. The enemy had about fifteen minutes notice of their approach and were formed, but Captains Burke and Blackford charged them and had a fight of ten minutes at close quarters.
Captain Hebble and 8 or 10 of his men (Yankees) were killed; a number wounded. Only 2 of our men wounded. Captains Burke and Blackford captured and brought out safely 23 Yankee soldiers and 1 negro. Horses and equipments captured, 50; sabers, 20 pistols, 25. All the Yankee officers, including the major commanding, escaped in the darkness, except Captain Hebble, killed.
2. In my last I informed you that I had left Captain Imboden in command of a detachment of four companies in Hardy. Captains Scott and White returned to camp. Captains Imboden and Hobson, with about 70 men, remaining. Early in the week they had a skirmish with a regiment in Patterson's Creek Valley on its way to re-occupy Petersburg, but with no important result; 1 man killed on our side, and Captain Jarbo reported mortally wounded on the other side by a shot from my brother. On Wednesday they fell back to the South Fork, above Moorefield, where their camp was discovered and reported by a Union man to the forces at Petersburg, when a plan was formed for their capture, as will be seen by the inclosed order, subsequently captured.
Captain McNeill, with 80 men, left my camp at this place on Wednesday, and joined Captains Imboden and Hobson on Thursday evening. That day a force of 300 men, under Major Stephens, came down from Petersburg to Moorefield. Captains McNeill, Imboden, and Hobson at once resolved to surprise their camp next morning at daybreak. The enemy picketed every road leading to their intrenched camp, and deployed about 50 men as skirmishers to remain in position all night, several hundred yards from their works, and sent out two companies to surprise our camp.
Our men moved noiselessly in the darkness, flanked the enemy's pickets, and succeeded in getting between the line of skirmishers and the camp before daybreak on Friday morning, the 11th. Just as dawn appeared they charged the Yankee camp, firing into the tents and yelling like savages. Some resistance was made, but in a short time the fight was over. About 30 Yankees were killed or too badly wounded to be removed. Lieutenant Welton, of McNeill's company, and 2 men were badly wounded; the former, it is feared, mortally.
The following are the captures made and safely brought to camp:
Prisoners:
Captains........................... 3
Lieutenants........................ 5
Total officers.................. 8
Non-commissioned officers and privates.......... 138
Total number or prisoners....... 146
Major Stephens escaped. All of whom I will start to Richmond to-morrow.
Wagons............................... 9
Ambulances........................... 2
Horses............................... 46
Saddles and bridles.................. 4
Minie muskets (best quality, in ..... 133
splendid order) Cartridge and cap boxes and
belts.... 112
New army pistols..................... 29
Rounds of fixed
ammunition........... 10,500
Sabers............................... 25
Bayonets
and scabbards............... 90
Sets of harness...................... 28
Drums................................ 2
The cooking utensils tents, blankets,
oil-cloths, commissary stores, &c.,
of the whole force.
First at 2 miles and again at 4 miles above Moorefield the parties of the enemy sent out from Petersburg and Moorefield in the night to surprise our men attacked them and attempted to rescue the prisoners. Sharp fighting ensued, but all were brought off with a loss of 8 or 10 men on our side, believed to have been captured, and 1 ambulance, in which the team was killed, together with 18 or 20 other horses.
Information reaching here night before last that the enemy was pursuing, Colonel Smith took 400 men and made a forced night march to the head of Lost River to assist in bringing in the prisoners, &c., but as it turned out he was not needed, all coming in safely to-day.
I cannot speak too highly of the gallantry of officers and men in this really brilliant little affair. They were in the very midst of a largely superior force plotting their capture or discomfiture, but completely turned the tables upon them.
I am so well convinced of the utility of this mode of warfare on the border, that day after to-morrow I start out two parties, one of 100 men, under Major Lang, Sixty-second Virginia Regiment, to penetrate the country north of Beverly on foot and harass the enemy two or three weeks in Barbour and Randolph; the other, a single company, under Captain Nelson, to go to the North Fork, in Pendleton, and try and clear out Snyder's gang of Union robbers and murderers, known as Swamp Dragoons.
All remains perfectly quiet in the lower valley. Only a small force of the enemy at Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry, and they stick to the railroad very closely. We are again hauling iron from Shenandoah to Staunton. A very large proportion of my horses have sore tongues and cannot stand much service.
If you could spare for twenty days 2,500 infantry and a battery, to co-operate with me, I believe we could destroy every bridge from Martinsburg to New Creek, break up the canal, and burn the coal mines at Cumberland, General Jenkins co-operating in the meantime with Colonel Jackson in a raid on Beverly and Grafton. The force of the enemy is too large and too easily concentrated for me to undertake it alone.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. D. IMBODEN,
Brigadier-General.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 29, Serial No. 48, Pages 105-107, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
