OPERATIONS IN N. C. AND S. E. VA. [CHAP.XIII.

by that wanton act of destruction are now left houseless and homeless. The enemy took away with them most of the able-bodied white men.

A more wanton and unnecessary act than the burning, as it seems to me, could not have ben committed. There was not the slightest attempt to make any resistance on our part to the possession of the town, which we had before evacuated, as you were informed by my last dispatch. There was no attempt to interfere with them there, as we only repelled an attempt to burn the bridge. It would have been easy to dislodge them from the town by a few shells from the fortress, but I did not choose to allow an opportunity to fasten upon the Federal troops any portion in this heathenish outrage.

The town was the property of the secession inhabitants of Virginia, and they and their friends have chosen deliberately to destroy it, and under circumstances of cruel indifference to the inhabitants, who had remained in their homes, entirely without parallel. Indeed, for two months past, since Hampton has been within the power of my troops, and during the month that we occupied it, every exertion was used by me to protect the property from spoliation and the inhabitants from outrage, and I can safely say that $100 would cover all the damage done there in occupied houses. that there has been some appropriation of furniture by the troops from unoccupied houses is most true, but it had been substantially all taken from them and stored in the Seminary building. I knew this course would meet the approval of the Commanding General, but in a single hour the rebel army devoted to indiscriminate destruction both public and private buildings, the church and the court-house, as well as the cottage of the widow.

I confess myself so poor a soldier as not to be able to discern the strategical importance of this movement. I had fortified the church-yard with earth embankments, which were not destroyed by the fire, while the hymn of praise and the voice of prayer went up in the church on the last Sabbath of its occupation by Massachusetts troops. The poor citizens were told by their friends that this destruction was to prevent the use of their village as winter quarters for our troops. But I am sure it never entered my mind, and, I take lave to believe, the mind of the Commanding General, that there was the furthest intention of wintering any portion of the Federal troops at this point outside the garrison. We had believed that we were to follow the track of our Northern birds southward with the approach of frost.

No demonstration was made by the enemy save the burning of a deserted village, and to-day nothing has been done by the enemy except to withdraw his troops across New Market Bridge. I regret the military necessity, to which I yield the cordial recognition of my judgment, which called for the withdrawal of the four regiments and a half, which caused the evacuation of Hampton; not for our sakes, but because of the loss which has thereby been brought upon the inhabitants. This act upon the part of the enemy seems to me to be a representative one, showing the spirit in which the war is to be carried on on their part, and which perhaps will have a tendency to provoke a corresponding spirit upon our part, but we may hope not.

Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER, Major-General, Commanding.

Lieutenant-General SCOTT, Commanding, &c.