Reports of Lieutenant Colonel Ira Spaulding, Fiftieth New York Engineers, of operations October 10 to December 5, 1863.

HDQRS. DETACHMENT 50th NEW YORK VOL. ENGINEERS,
Bristoe Station, Va., October 23, 1863.

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the detachment under my command since you left Rappahannock Station on the 10th instant:

About dark on the evening of the 10th instant I received orders to send a train to Kelly's Ford and throw a bridge there. The night was dark and the road bad. Five out of seven boats were upset on the rocks during the passage, but the bridge was completed at 2 a.m. on the morning of the 11th.

During the night of the 11th instant, I was ordered to throw a bridge at Beverly Ford; to get Captain McDonald's train for that purpose, if possible, but if unable to do so to bring up the one from Kelly's Ford, but to have a bridge at Beverly Ford at all hazards. After some delay in searching for Captain McDonald, and finding his bridge in use at Hazel Run, about 4 miles west of the Rappahannock, I ordered up the Kelly's Ford bridge, and at 3 a.m. on the morning of the 12th the bridge was finished at Beverly Ford. About noon Captain McDonald reported with his train, and I sent him down to Kelly's Ford. During the day our forces advanced again toward Culpeper, but about 11 at night they commenced rapidly recrossing the river to this side.

At midnight I received orders to be prepared to remove all our bridges as soon as the army had all recrossed, which it was supposed would be about daylight, and to destroy the railway bridge. Captain Mendell kindly offered any assistance I might require, and to him and his command was assigned the duty of dismantling the bridge at Beverly Ford and destroying the railway bridge.

The two pontoon bridges at Rappahannock Station were removed about 7:30 a.m. The pontoon bridge at Beverly Ford was not dismantled until about an hour later, owing to delays in crossing General Sykes' corps. All our pontoon bridges and material were successfully removed without loss, and about 10 a.m. were all concentrated at Bealeton, including Captain McDonald's train. Thence we proceeded to Weaverville via Warrenton Junction, being very much delayed on the way by trains blocking up the road. There we bivouacked and fed our teams. At 2 a.m. on the morning of the 13th we turned out and prepared for a start, but the road was jammed so full of teams we could not move. I waited until some hours after daylight, riding ahead and examining the road. Tools were distributed to a pretty large party of our own men, to act as a pioneer corps, and we turned into the woods, making our own road through the woods and fields to Brentsville, not using a foot of the regular road for the whole distance of 9 miles. Here we encountered such a broken country that it was impossible to proceed farther in that way, and after waiting some hours for the Sixth Corps trains to pass we fell in behind them, with the cavalry trains of six hundred wagons behind ours.

While waiting at Brentsville heavy fighting was in progress on our left, and repeated messages came from General Buford to hurry up the trains as he feared he could not hold the enemy in check. While at or near this point one of our men - Eugene Lyon, of com-