The Board are glad, however, to be able to record their opinion that the officers present in Washington generally, perhaps without exception, not only discountenanced, but used their best endeavors to repress, the disorder and pillage.

At 10 o'clock on the morning of the 30th, and as the last troops were about embarking, a fire broke out in some stables, which had for two days been unoccupied. The conflagration extended to adjacent buildings, and spread so rapidly as to defy all attempts to extinguish it. That this fire was designedly caused admits of little question, but the Board are unable to come to any satisfactory conclusion as to the guilty parties.

Some four hours later Colonel McChesney, at that time in command of the post, sent by one of his officers a verbal order to Commander Renshaw, of the gun-boat Louisiana, then in the stream, in consequence of which that officer sent a boat's crew and set fire to the bridge across the Tar River. This fire also is supposed to have spread through the town. So far as appears in evidence, the fires which caused such serious destruction of property originated at these two points alone. Other fires were kindled, but extinguished in every instance before they had caused any damage.

The commander of the post declares that he had no intention whatever of burning the bridge, but whether his instructions were carelessly given, incorrectly transmitted, or misapprehended, or willfully disregarded by the commander of the Louisiana, the Board do not deem a matter of great importance.

II. The findings of the Board of Investigation in this case are approved, and published for the information of those concerned.

III. The Board of Investigation, of which Colonel James W. Savage, Twelfth New Your Cavalry, is president, is dissolved.

By command of Brigadier General I. N. Palmer:

J. A. JUDSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 2. Abstract from Record of Events on return of the Sub-district of the Pamlico for April, 1864.

April 26. - Instructions received from headquarters District of North Carolina to evacuate Washington, N. C.

April 27. - The First Regiment North Carolina (Union) Volunteers (white), with their families and baggage, embarked for New Berne, N. C. A rebel force made their appearance in our front; some skirmishing; loss, 2 of the men of the Seventeenth Massachusetts killed, 1 or 2 wounded; our artillery busy shelling the woods and roads; all contrabands removed to Hill's Point.

April 28. - The rebel force disappeared from our front; several deserters report the force to be that of General Hoke, from plymouth, estimated at from 8,000 to 10,000 men. The Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania and Twenty-first Connecticut Volunteer Infantry embarked at Washington for Fort Monroe. All the cavalry and light artillery, with quartermaster's train, sent overland from Washington to New Berne.

April 29. - Rebel cavalry drove in our pickets on the south side of the Pamlico River.

April 30. - all the ordnance and ordnance stores, quartermaster's and commissary stores, contrabands and Union people who desired to leave, having been shipped from Washington, N. C., to New Berne, the remainder of the troops embarked for New Berne, leaving the garrison at Hatteras Inlet the only force of United States troops in the Sub-district of the Pamlico. At the time of the evacuation a fire broke out in Washington, which, notwithstanding the exertions of officers and men to extinguish it, destroyed a large portion of the town. Origin of the fire unknown.