was complete. Very many of the contrabands came safely off with the column. No particulars are yet reported, but this raid seems to have surpassed all others, except Hunter's in the damage inflicted on the enemy.

C. A. DANA.

Honorable E. M. STANTON.

Washington.

GRANT'S HEADQUARTERS,

July 2, 1864-11 a.m. (Received 4.50 p.m.)

Everything quiet this morning. There was a good deal of firing both of musketry and artillery about 10 p.m. yesterday on Burnside's front, but it amounted to nothing. Nothing heard yet from Sheridan. Wilson is moving up to this vicinity to recruit his horses. The heat is excessive.

C. A. DANA.

Honorable E. M. STANTON.

CITY POINT, VA., July 3, 1864-9 a.m.

(Received 1.35 p.m.)

All quiet on lines and no new developments. The mine with which the rebel redoubt in front of Burnside is to be blown up is advancing well, but is a pretty heavy job, and will take some time yet. I have just come in from a visit to Wilson's cavalry camp. The men and horses are both in much better condition than I had expected. Wilson estimates his total loss at from 750 to 1,000 men, including those lost from Kautz's division. Of these some 600 were killed and wounded in fair fighting, of which they had plenty from the beginning. Wilson confirms Kautz's statement that the expedition averaged forty miles a day. In one thirty-six hours Kautz marched eighty miles. Of railroads fully sixty miles were thoroughly destroyed. The Danville road, Wilson says, could not repaired in less than forty days, even if all the materials were at hand, and he has destroyed all the blacksmith shops where the bars might be straightened out,and all the mills where scantling for sleepers could be sawed. The Thirty miles he broke up of the South Side road my be repaired in about ten days, if the work is not disturbed. That road has I rails and for want of suitable implements the rails could not be thoroughly destroyed, but only bent and twisted by laying them across piles of burning ties. The bridge across the Staunton or Roanoke River he was unable to destroy, because he could not cross the river to get in the rear of the fortifications, there being neither ford nor bridge for fifty miles, except this very railroad bridge. It had been garrisoned for protection against the cavalry of Hunter's expedition. The river at that place is some 600 feet wide. The same want of means of crossing prevented the expedition from crossing back on the south side of that river. It appears that the only means of passing it used by the inhabitants is small ferry-boats, and with these the expedition could not have been safely got over. The final misfortune resulted from ignorance of the fact that the Army of the Potomac had not been able to take up the position indicated in General Meade's instructions to Wilson; besides, all the scouts and country people reported that there was no rebel force between Stony Creek and the Federal lines. But for this Wilson would have crossed the Nottoway