The Richmond Daily Dispatch.
Monday morning...May 25, 1863
Yankee depredations in Mathews county.
A gentleman who arrived in this city on Saturday last, and who left Baltimore on Sunday last, coming through Mathews and adjoining counties, furnishes us with some interesting particulars of the depredations of the Yankees in that section. On Tuesday, the 19th inst., a party of Federal cavalry, estimated to number from 400 to 500, came over to Mathews Court-House, where they pillaged everything within reach. They left scarcely a horse or mule in the county, and burnt several flouring mills, declaring their determination to stop farming operations, and to prevent the grinding of what wheat might be raised. The mill of Mrs. Sparks was among those destroyed.--At the house of a prominent citizen they took every pound of bacon, drove off all the stock, and did not leave provisions sufficient to subsist the family for one week. They took from the person of a gentleman a fine gold watch, and on his complaining to the commanding officer, he was told that if he could point out the man who had the watch it should be returned. The guilty party was at once designated, but by the officer, who was as great a thief as himself, was permitted to lie out of the scrape, and retain the watch. They extended their raid into Middlesex, where they captured Lieut. Harvey, who was at home on furlough.
About the same time a body of cavalry from Hooker's command, numbering some 600, went down into the Northern Neck, and plundered the citizens of Northumberland, Lancaster, and Westmoreland, stealing and destroying everything in their route. The people are very much discouraged by these repeated outrages, and are clamorous for protection. They think that a few hundred Confederate cavalry would effectually shield them from these plunderers.
On Thursday the enemy captured a blockade running schooner in the Rappahannock river, about six miles above Urbana. She had a large stock of different kinds of goods on board.
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