OR, Series 1, Vol. 18, Page 329

Headquarters Department of Southern Virginia
May 25, 1863
 
General S. Cooper
Adjutant and Inspector General
 
General,
   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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   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.}
Yours, very respectfully,
S. G. French
Major-General Commanding
 
Indorsement
Engineer Bureau, June 9, 1863
 
   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.
J. F. Gilmer
Colonel of Engineers and Chief of Bureau

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