WASHINGTON, March 11. – Official information to-day reports
that the enemy were encamped back off and below Occoquan. They have retreated destroying everything
they could not carry on their backs.
They left on Saturday, our troops took possession this morning and were
welcomed by a part of the inhabitants with great joy. Every boat in the vicinity and everything
that would float had been destroyed.
The rebels told the villagers that they were going to fall
back to the Rappahannock.
A call of the Government on the militia of the State for
10,000 men was proclaimed on the streets of Occoquan on the 9th inst., by an
official who immediately departed.
Nearly all the able bodied men of the village left with the
rebel army. A few refused to go.
The rebel force which has thus retreated was composed of
three Louisiana, one Mississippi, and the Hampton Legion.
Com. Vanderbilt gave notice to-day to the Postmaster General
that they would carry the Central American and the south Pacific mails in his line
steamers provided he could be protected against parties who were carrying the California
mails over his line for which w receives no payment.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 4
