fight about four in the afternoon, which left five-and-twenty killed and wounded men of both sides almost within a stone's throw of my house, all of whom I had brought in-the dead to be buried and the wounded to be nursed; and while I was engaged in this work of mercy General Stuart's command returned from the Rappahannock just after night-fall, when the work of destruction began, which continued through the night, and until ten or eleven o'clock the next morning. When I reached my house with the last load of wounded men, I found the inclosure to my yard, garden, and corn-field all torn down, camp-fires burning in each, near enough, with a good wind, to endanger my buildings, four or five hundred horses turned loose into my orchard and corn-field, fence-rails blazing in every direction, and the men in a state of frenzied excitement; and if my family and myself escaped personal violence, I was more indebted for it to Providence than I was to General Stuart, who passed immediately by on his way to his quarters a mile off, and witnessed this general havoc, or to Captain Randolph, who was in immediate command of the regiment occupying my yard, garden, etc.; except that none of my household were tomahawked or scalped, the scene reminded me more of what I had read of in Indian or savage warfare than any thing that had occurred among a Christian and civilized people. What corn they could not feed away to three or four thousand horses that night and next morning or carry away with them, they piled up with the rails and burned in the field; and if they left me one ear of corn on the farm, I have never seen it. With the whole premises closely grazed (consequently with no hay), the situation in which I was left may be understood when I say that two of my best work-horses died before my eyes from actual starvation; and this was the situation in which General Meade's arrival found me, and from him and General Ingalls I obtained permission to supply myself with provisions for man and beast, otherwise my stock would all have perished.

All this may appear to be personal matter, in which the public have little interest, and for which they have less care; but I mention it for a purpose, and that is, when people who brought all their troubles on themselves shall hereafter prate about the vandalism of the Union armies, they may take this as an offset. Of all these facts I made a minute written report to General Lee. He replied civilly, and sent one of his staff-officers to see me, but if he took any official action upon it, I have not heard of it. The open account left standing between General Stuart, Captain Randolph, and myself was all settled by the early death of each in the spring of 1865 near Richmond.

The morning after these outrages were committed upon my premises, General Stuart and staff passed by immediately along the line of depredation, and within thirty or forty yards of where I stood, and, if he did not exult over the destruction that fell under his eye, he certainly had no word of censure or reproof for his men. About two hours after he passed, I was arrested by his provost marshal and carried to Culpepper Courthouse; all of which will be explained by the following letter, which I addressed to the Richmond Examiner at the time, but which they declined to publish; and my friends in Richmond would not press it, from an apprehension of the consequences that might result to me, an apprehension in which I have never participated.

MR. BOTTS'S LETTER TO THE RICHMOND EXAMINER IN 1863.

The following letter was written and sent to the Richmond Examiner in November, 1863, but, greatly to my regret, it was not published. When the Federal army occupied Brandy in 1864, a reporter of the New York Herald, hearing of the fact, solicited a copy for that paper, in which it appeared. The copy below is from the Richmond Republic of June 28, 1865.

"Head-quarters Army of the Potomac, near Brandy Station, Saturday, November 21, 1863.

"Hon. JOIN MINOR BOTTS:

SIR,-I have been informed that, previous to the recrossing of the Rappahannock by General Meade, you had prepared a letter for publication in the Richmond press; and knowing that any thing from your pen, particularly at this time, has a deep interest for the country, I would respectfully solicit a copy of the letter, on behalf of the Associated Press, for publication. Respectfully,

“T. BARNARD, Correspondent Associated Press.”

“Auburn, Culpepper County, Va., November 21, 1863. "DEAR SIR,-Your note of to-day has been received. You have not been misinformed as to my having written a letter for publication in one of the Richmond papers prior to the arrival of the Union army in this vicinity, which I have reason to suppose has before this reached the public eye through the channel for which it was intended. I therefore inclose you a copy of the letter for the purpose indicated in your note. "I am, very respectfully, "JOHN M. BOTTS.

"T. BARNARD, Esq., Correspondent Associated Press."

"Auburn, Culpepper County, October 18, 1863.

"To the Editor of the Examiner : "SIR,-Yours is the only paper published in Richmond to which I could make an application with any likelihood of success, in order to set myself right before the public, and you will pardon me for saying that I am by no means confident of obtaining such a privilege at your hands; but I think I have a right to expect it, inasmuch as you have chosen to publish an extract from a letter written by a correspondent for, and published in, the New York Herald, accompanied with some uncalled-for and ill-natured comments of your own. But I do not ask you to publish it for me without making a suitable charge, which I am more than willing to pay. I hope, therefore, you will allow me to say that, while I have long since forborne to make corrections of any misrepresentations of me by the public press, yet there are some of such a nature, and calculated to beget so much prejudice in the public mind, that I do not feel I would be acting wisely or properly to let them pass unnoticed.

"I am willing at all times to be held to a proper responsibility for any thing I may say or do, but I am not willing to be so held for what others, who may draw upon their fancies for their facts, may choose to say for me or of me. I have seen several statements in the Richmond papers lately, copied from Northern papers, calculated to excite popular feeling against me, which had no foundation in fact.

"1st. That I had been accosted by some Indiana major, then engaged in a skirmish with some of the rebel cavalry, and, on being asked which way they had gone (which, by the way, if he was skirmishing with them, he ought to have known for himself without asking me), I replied, 'I was not at liberty to tell him, as I was on my parole,' and then very gratuitously added that 'I was a Union man without any ifs or buts.' Now, whatever my opinions and position on this subject may be, it is not true that I have had any such interview. I have seen no such major, and had no such question put to me, and have given no such answer.

"2d. In the letter, a portion of which you have copied, I am represented by the writer as having said, 'I wish the Federal generals knew half that I know of the rebels, and their resources and intentions.' I have only to say that I said no such thing, and nothing that would bear a resemblance to it; and when I read the Herald containing it, I mentioned the error to other correspondents of that paper and asked them to have it corrected, which they promised should be done. I see nothing in it, if I had said it, to be complained of by other parties, as it matters not what I knew of their

intentions and resources, provided I did not disclose them to others. I complained of it, because it made me appear in the ridiculous attitude of pretending to know what every man of intelligence and reflection was obliged to know was preposterous in the extreme. For all know that I am not in the confidence of the government or the commander of its forces, and therefore could know nothing of their intentions; and as to their resources I profess to be profoundly ignorant, either as to what they are or where they are. What he says about my purchases in Richmond is true. For what would have cost before the war, at regular market prices, $64 15, I did pay $1368 03. But this was disclosing no important state secret, inasmuch as you furnish them with the prices current once or twice a week, and these current prices are as well known in New York as they are to me. But I did not tell it with any expectation that it was to get into the newspapers, for when I mentioned it I did not know to whom I was addressing myself. The gentleman came, as many others did, to pay his respects, and it was not until he was going away that he handed me his card, by which I ascertained that he was an army correspondent of the New York Herald. I incidentally mentioned the fact in speaking of the great scarcity of and high prices for every thing. Το this part of his letter, therefore, I made no objection. But, in your comments on this letter, you say 'Mr. Botts came to Richmond on quite a different errand than on a marketing expedition. He came to draw some twelve or fifteen thousand dollars of the government which he delights to abuse, and affects so much to despise. He abhors the government, but loves its money.' In the first place, let me say that, whatever I may think of the government, I have never felt myself entirely at liberty in this land of freedom to say half as much against its administration as I have read in your own editorial columns. But I have never made professions of devotion to the government. I have never ceased to feel a warm interest in the welfare of the people of Virginia, with whose prosperity and freedom my own are entirely identified; and I will take occasion to say here what I said to General Meade, and have said to all, that my earnest prayer is that this revolution may result in whatever may contribute most to the permanent peace, happiness, prosperity, and freedom of the people of Virginia. These are the blessings of a good government. This is what I suppose is desired and aimed at by all, unless the selfish politicians and the corrupt speculators in and out of the army may constitute an exception. They care not under what sort of government they live, provided they fill the high places and have their pockets well lined.

We

may differ possibly, and perhaps honestly, as to the best means of attaining these desirable ends. If it is by the success of the revolution, then I pray God the revolution may succeed; but if by a restoration of the Union, then I hope the Union may be restored. What I want is a government that has the will and the power to protect my person and my property against all abuses, and that I would prefer living as I did before the war to living as I have done since the war, is beyond all question; and I would be a madman or a fool if I did not, and a knave and hypocrite if I were to pretend otherwise.

"3d. I hope I committed no unpardonable offense if I did go to Richmond to collect, or try to collect some $12,000 or $15,000, for which I furnished supplies, or, rather, for which supplies were taken from me for the use of the Confederate army, all of which were certified to as being due by the commanders of regiments or by quarter-masters, but which were not paid because the accounts were not made out in the precise form authorized at what you have called the "red tape and circumlocution offices," which accounts are still due, and unpaid, and, I fear, are likely to remain so.

"Finally, it has been announced that I have been arrested and sent to Richmond; but those who made the arrest and those who made the announcement have taken good care not to mention the cause of the arrest, thereby leaving the public to infer that I had committed some grave of fense against the government which you say I do much abhor. God knows it, and its agents have given me no great reason to worship it.

"Let us see how the account stands. On my part I have done nothing, from first to last, of which this government can complain, unless it be that I have not become Democratized, and have made no concessions to Democracy, and have none to make hereafter, and because I have not chosen to follow blindly wherever Democracy might choose to lead.

"On the other hand, of what have I to complain? First, the legislative power of the government has been especially directed against me while I was leading the most retired and secluded life, as was clearly admitted by the Hon. Henry S. Foote at the following session of Congress, when he said he had been induced to vote for the declaration of martial law and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus upon a representation of the condition of things supposed to exist in the neighborhood of the city of Richmond, but which turned out to be entirely groundless. Second, the power of the Executive branch of the government has been exerted against me, when, under this detestable, unwritten, unknown