drawn up in line. A company, which seems to have taken the best defensible position, on an eminence near the town, was ordered down from in, and the colonel received the major's report, which was that escape was impossible; that they were surrounded by about 1,100 of the enemy, and that he advised that no attempt should be made to fight. The major appears to have been very urgent that the surrender should be made, and threatened to arrest a subaltern who still remonstrated. The men were then ordered to stack arms, and the surrender was made without firing a shot.

A little before the surrender, and while the enemy's flag was in the town, a courier was dispatched to a detachment of about 100 men at Ravenswood, on the Ohio, 35 or 40 miles distant, ordering them up as a re-enforcement. This courier passed through safely. The detachment started at a little after midnight, and upon getting within 13 miles of Spencer learned of the surrender, and that the prisoners were taken off on another road. There is no sufficient evidence that the roads to Parkersburg or Ravenswood were occupied by the enemy; on the contrary, it is testified that the country in some directions was entirely impracticable for his cavalry, and his numbers are estimated by witnesses as not over 600.

Such are the facts which the testimony discloses, and I deem it proper and for the advantage of the service to recommend that the proceedings be forwarded to the Secretary of War, with a request that Colonel J. C. Rathbone and Major George C. Trimble, of the Eleventh Virginia Volunteer Infantry, be dismissed the service.

The whole affair was a burlesque upon military operations, without one redeeming feature. From the receipt of thee new of Jenkins' approach in the morning to the receipt of the grossly exaggerated panic-making report of the major in the evening, the reverse of soldierly conduct is proven to have prevailed.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. D. COX,

Major-General, Commanding.

Major N. H. MCLEAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Ohio.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJT. General 'S OFFICE,

Numbers 6.
Washington, January 6, 1863.

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VI. Colonel J. C. Rathbone and Major George C. Trimble, Eleventh Virginia Volunteers, are, by direction of the President, dismissed the service of the United States for cowardly conduct in surrounding their command at Spencer Court-House, Va., on the 2nd September, 1862.

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By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.