Summary:
In early June, 1864, Union troops captured Staunton, Virginia. By the 15th,
Confederate Colonel Edwin Lee returned to the town. In this letter to
Confederate Assistant Adjutant General J. Stoddard Johnston, Lee reports how he
discovered sick and wounded Federals in the Staunton hospital, and worked
quickly to parole them before Union troops arrived.
Maj. J. STODDARD JOHNSTON,
Assistant
Adjutant-Gen.
Staunton,
June 15, 1864
MAJ.:
Your note of the 13th reached me yesterday by return courier. It states "McNeill and Gilmor are in the Valley below." Maj. Gilmor has just showed me your note of the 12th requesting him to join the major- general commanding with all his force, and directing him to order similar force likewise-McNeill and Mosby, I suppose. If the intention of yours of the 13th to me was to supersede that of the 12th to Gilmor, I would respectfully call attention to the fact that there is now only McNeill's sixty men between me and the Potomac, and he will, under Maj. Gilmor's order, be removed. If consistent with the exigencies of the case, would it not be well to permit Gilmor and McNeill to remain below? If both, or either, are kept there, I ask that they be instructed to keep me advised of the enemy's movements, and especially of all that threatens this point. I will have the telegraph ready for work to-morrow.
There are 200 wounded Yankees here at the hospital and forty nurses. I had no guard when I got here and did not know when the enemy might get back; so I went to work and paroled the whole of them. I sent a copy of the parole. It is the same that they gave our hospital men, except the clause regarding escape, which I added because I had no guard, and because I did not know whether the paroles were binding anyhow. Is the parole they gave our men binding now? Is mine binding to them unless we keep the men and deliver them at a point of exchange? Is there not some special agreement between the two Governments about hospital paroles? Cannot these fellows be returned to their own lines as fast as convalescent by mutual consent of Gen.'s Breckinridge and Hunter, instead of sending them to Richmond? I have not yet deliver to the surgeon in charge of them a copy of the parole or the list.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
E. G. LEE,
Col., Cmdg. Post.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 37, Serial No. 70, Pages 151-152, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
