We have briefly spoken of the engagement between Generals Early and Hunter, near Lynchburg, and the abrupt retreat of the latter to the western mountains and thence toward the Ohio.  It may interest the reader to know General Lee’s views on the subject of this retreat, which, it seems, were drawn from him by a letter addressed to him by General Hunter: 

“As soon after the war as mail communications were opened,” writes the gentleman of high character from whom we derive this incident, “General David Hunter wrote to General Lee, begging that he would answer him frankly on two points:” 

’I.  His (Hunter’s) campaign in 1864 was undertaken on information received by General Halleck that General Lee was about to detach forty thousand picked troops to send to Georgia.  Did not his (Hunter’s) move prevent this?

’II.  When he found it necessary to retreat from Lynchburg, did he not take the most feasible route?’

General Lee wrote a very courteous reply, in which he said: 

’I.  General Halleck was misinformed.  I had no troops to spare, and forty thousand would have taken nearly my whole army.

’II.  I am not advised as to the motives which induced you to adopt your line of retreat, and am not, perhaps, competent to judge of the question; but I certainly expected you to retreat by way of the Shenandoah Valley.’

“General Hunter,” adds our correspondent, “never published this letter, but I heard General Lee tell of it one day with evident pleasure.”

Lee’s opinion of the military abilities of both Generals Hunter and Sheridan was indeed far from flattering.  He regarded those two commanders—­especially General Sheridan—­as enjoying reputations solely conferred upon them by the exhaustion of the resources of the Confederacy, and not warranted by any military efficiency in themselves.

IX.

THE MINE EXPLOSION.

The end of the month of July was now approaching, and every attempt made by General Grant to break through Lee’s lines had resulted in failure.  At every point which he assailed, an armed force, sufficient to repulse his most vigorous attacks, seemed to spring from the earth; and no movement of the Federal forces, however sudden and rapid, had been able to take the Confederate commander unawares.  The campaign was apparently settling down into stubborn fighting, day and night, in which the object of General Grant was to carry out his programme of attrition.  Such was the feeling in both armies when, at dawn on the 30th of July, a loud explosion, heard for thirty miles, took place on the lines near Petersburg, and a vast column of smoke, shooting upward to a great height, seemed to indicate the blowing up of an extensive magazine.

Instead of a magazine, it was a mine which had thus been exploded; and the incident was not the least singular of a campaign unlike any which had preceded it.