The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-07-11
The Recent Federal Raid into
East Tennessee.

! CAMP NEAR LANCASTER, KY, June, '63.
L have just returned, with the East Ten
nessee expedition, from most irving and
perllous raid, but more successful one
was never made into the enemy's country.
We travelled day and night, and canned
only once after we entered Tennessee. vet
stopping long enough, each day, to feed our
horses once. We made our first haul at
Wattsburg, up in the mountains of Ten
nessee. There we came upon rebel camp.
and captured los prisoners, and a lot Of
Commissary stores, which we DESTROYED.
| We then pushed on, with the intention of
destroying the great railroad bridge at Lou
don, but they got wind of our coming.
| through the prisoners we had paroled, and
had reinforced to such an extent that we
| thought prudence the better part of valor,
and kept away from it ; but we then struck
| the railroad at Lenoir Station, twenty-five
miles southwest from Knoxville, where
we found a large depot crammed full of all
KINDS OF ammunition. We found also, o
large lot OF commissary stores, a large fac
tory making clothing for the rebel army,
ana TWO houses well filled with cotton, all
OF which We burned.
We then marched along the railroad, in
.ne dlrectlon OF Knoxville, tearing up the
track, piilng wood upon it, and setting it
on fire. We reached Knoxville that night.
and rested within the enemy's lines until
daylight, but not shot was fired. The
next morning we captured one of their
camps and large lot of horses. We then
moved upon the town. As we had only two
heavy pieces of artillery, and the rebels
had six or eight, after fighting them about
an hour, we concluded to retreat and 90 ON
with our work of destruction. which was
our chief object We marched along the
road a few miles, and burned very fine
railroad bridge, 400 feet long. We then
q on Strawberry Plains, and after a
| hight ha
al! It's contents, together with magnificent
railroad bridge, 1900 feet in length, all of
which we burned. We next followed the
road to Moss Creek, where we burned an
! other bridge and large lot of commissary
stores.
The distance of railroad DESTROYED was
about sixty miles. We also DESTROYED over
$3, OOO, 600 worth of property, captured and
paroled 600 prisoners, spiked IA of their
cannon, captured about 20 fine horses-four
Of them being stations worth 81 900 each,
and about as many mules. In short, we
consider our raid perfect success. We
had only one man killed, and that was at
Knoxville. We had five wounded, two of
whom we were obliged to leave.
At Moss Greek we learned that the rebels
were coming down the road in great num-
bers, to attack us. Not caring to see them,
we began our retreat across the mountains.
When we reached Big Creek Gap, we found
q ooi ohS Iouel loICe SuttIulHS IL, ana tnS
gap thoroughly blockaded, with a strong
force OF rebels in our front and rear. Our
only means of escape was to strike off over
the mountains, without road or path, and
in order to do so, we had to spike our guns
and leave them, which was done very re-
luctantly. After thus making an effort to
escape through three different gaps, we
found ourselves driven to the necessity Of
striking out over the mountains, at one of
their lowest points, without a path or any,
thing else, except one of the best guides
that ever lived. We rushed up over the
mountains, the rebels firing on our rear, as
long as they thought they could reach us,
but without effect. Many of our horses
gave out and rolled down the mountain
sides. That night many of the men be-
came exhausted, and sank down and slept
until morning. After three days of such
retreating, without mouthful of anything
to eat, we reached Boston, Kentucky, pro-
badly the most fatigued s,ld pitiable set of
soldiers that this war has yet made. We
have now been ordered into camp at Hick-
man bridge, probably to recruit for anoth-
er raid into Tennessee.