ADDENDA.

COVINGTON, VA.,

December 26, 1863.

Major General SAMUEL JONES:

DEAR SIR: The enemy escaped through this place on the evening of the 19th and morning of the 20th. Great indignation is expressed by the citizens, but of course I know nothing of the facts.

It seems, from what I can learn here, that Colonel Jackson was located at Jackson's River Depot; that he made no preparation to meet the enemy, either by permanent or temporary works, or to prevent his passage west; that all done by the colonel was to build a fence across the road at the lower end of the Alum Rock. Scouts were not sent over 4 miles from camp until one of the provost guard ran into camp and reported the advance of the enemy through the Rich Patch; that no plan of battle was prepared; that no speedy arrangements were made after notice to meet the enemy; that the whereabouts of the commanding officer was not known during the period that it was necessary; that his orders to Colonel Arnett were not obeyed; that he (the colonel) ordered Captain McAllister to make ready to burn the Island Ford Bridge, but not to burn it until he received orders to do so; that no arrangements were made to insure the certainty of orders reaching McAllister, and that the enemy were on McAllister before he knew of them; that the colonel, in the meantime, had dispatched a messenger with orders to burn, but that it was impossible for him to get there, as will appear by the accompanying diagram,* and he was captured; that the enemy crossed the bridge and burned it, leaving Fourteenth Pennsylvania and the wagon train behind; that that regiment hoisted a white flag three times and yet escaped; that instead of gathering up stragglers the soldiers were running about plundering and gathering up property abandoned by the enemy, and that almost every crime has been perpetrated by the command from burglary down to rape.

By the copy of a paper inclosed it seems the enemy captured your dispatch of 19th. The courier stopped from one and a half to two hours to Jo. Sively's, on Potts Creek, 6 miles from Island Ford Bridge. Had he attended to his business he would not have been captured.

Unless your order an investigation of these matters, the people here will demand it from the War Department, as the whole community are in a state of great excitement, augmented no little by the many petty crimes, and increased at last to fever heat by the rape on a most respectable lady.

If you think it right to order an investigation, I will furnish you the names of witnesses-all respectable men. So much for what has happened.

The burning of the Island Ford Bridge and the bridge at Covington renders it necessary to build two ferry-boats, if you intend to make this a military road. As Major-General had received orders to put the road in repair, and was making arrangements to do so, and as to railroad bridge across the Cow Pasture will be completed in January make arrangements about the ferry-boats at once, if the road is to be used for military purposes in the future. Had the Cow Pasture

See p. 947.