bridge, and all the Government property was taken possession of by a detachment of two companies from the Fourth Regiment, accompanied by a dozen regulars with a field-piece, acting under the orders of Colonel Dimick, the commander of the post.  They retired, denouncing vengeance on Massachusetts troops for the invasion of Virginia.  Our pickets then occupied the entire bridge and a small strip of the main-land beyond, covering a valuable well; but still there was no occupation in force of any but Government property.  The creation of a new military department, to the command of which a major-general was assigned, was soon to terminate this isolation.  On the 13th of May the First Vermont Regiment arrived, on the 24th the Second New York, and two weeks later our forces numbered nearly ten thousand.

On the 23d of May General Butler ordered the first reconnoitring expedition, which consisted of a part of the Vermont Regiment, and proceeded under the command of Colonel Phelps over the dike and bridge towards Hampton.  They were anticipated, and when in sight of the second bridge saw that it had been set on fire, and, hastening forward, extinguished the flames.  The detachment then marched into the village.  A parley was held with a Secession officer, who represented that the men in arms in Hampton were only a domestic police.  Meanwhile the white inhabitants, particularly the women, had generally disappeared.  The negroes gathered around our men, and their evident exhilaration was particularly noted, some of them saying, “Glad to see you, Massa,” and betraying the fact, that, on the approach of the detachment, a field-piece stationed at the bridge had been thrown into the sea.  This was the first communication between our army and the negroes in this department.

The reconnoissance of the day had more important results than were anticipated.  Three negroes, owned by Colonel Mallory, a lawyer of Hampton and a Rebel officer, taking advantage of the terror prevailing among the white inhabitants, escaped from their master, skulked during the afternoon, and in the night came to our pickets.  The next morning, May 24th, they were brought to General Butler, and there, for the first time, stood the Major-General and the fugitive slave face to face.  Being carefully interrogated, it appeared that they were field-hands, the slaves of an officer in the Rebel service, who purposed taking them to Carolina to be employed in military operations there.  Two of them had wives in Hampton, one a free colored woman, and they had several children in the neighborhood.  Here was a new question, and a grave one, on which the Government had as yet developed no policy.  In the absence of precedents or instructions, an analogy drawn from international law was applied.  Under that law, contraband goods, which are directly auxiliary to military operations, cannot in time of war be imported by neutrals into an enemy’s country, and may be seized as lawful prize when the attempt is made so to import them.