| Headquarters
Department of Southern Virginia |
| May
25, 1863 |
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| General S. Cooper
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| Adjutant and Inspector General
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| General,
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| During the three weeks that
Lieutenant-General Longstreet kept the enemy confined within Suffolk
there was an effort made to remove the iron from the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad. Commencing near Suffolk, the engineer department
succeeded in taking up about 3 miles of the rails and removed it
toward Franklin and deposited it at or near a place known as Beaver
Dam, where it could be protected by the forces near Franklin. After
we withdrew from Suffolk the enemy discovered the effort made to
secure the iron on our part, and soon marched to Carrsville with a
force of between 9,000 and 10,000 infantry, 30 pieces of artillery,
and cavalry, and immediately fortified their position and commenced
taking up the track and removing it toward Suffolk. General Jenkins
assembled all the available forces, and with about 3,000 men crossed
over and drove in all their advanced lines behind their
intrenchments and kept them there for near three days, causing them
to abandon the road this side of Carrsville, and thus enabled our
forces to save the road to that point, except a few hundred yards,
and the iron brought from near Suffolk. The enemy would not leave
his works to attack us, and with our small force had we driven him
from his intrenchments it would have been a victory barren of
results and involving a heavy sacrifice of men on our part. All this
time while confronting him we were removing the iron as rapidly as
possible. The road destroyed, the enemy fell back and immediately
with his whole force assumed a position at Windsor, on the Norfolk
& Petersburg Railroad, and simultaneously moved up the Chowan with
gunboats above the Nottoway River.
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| *****
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| It is to me a source of great regret
that so little of the iron from the two railroads referred to was
taken up during the time General Longstreet was at Suffolk. I am
sure had there been any concert or a proper concert of action in the
departments the bridge over the Blackwater could have been built,
and by constructing a small curve at the crossing of the roads near
Suffolk trains could have been run from Petersburg to Franklin via
Suffolk and both roads taken up. Had a bridge been thrown across the
Zuni before General Longstreet moved and during the month he was
making preparations, every bar of iron could have been secured while
we were there at Suffolk. {Roughly 25 miles of
iron was in question on the two roads east of Franklin and
Carrsville.}
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| Yours, very respectfully,
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| S. G. French
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| Major-General Commanding
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| Indorsement
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| Engineer
Bureau, June 9, 1863
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| Respectfully returned to the honorable
Secretary of War. No effort was spared to remove the iron from the
Norfolk & Petersburg road and from the Seaboard road while General
Longstreet was in command; but his efforts, assisted by the
engineers under his control, were given to the collection of
supplies for the army, these being considered of the first
importance. Everything possible with the engineers has been done to
save the iron in question, and I am now able to report that a large
part of' the iron from the Seaboard Railroad is on the right bank of
the Blackwater.
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| J. F. Gilmer
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| Colonel of Engineers and Chief of Bureau
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