The Governor, I hear, issued a notification that the enemy would be here to-day, etc. I did not see it.
All classes not in the army were gathered up and marched to the defenses.
2 p.m. Respectable men just from the vicinity report a great victory for Lee, yesterday, though we have nothing from him. The Secretary believes these concurring reports, which state that the battle, beginning near Spottsylvania Court House, ended at Fredericksburg, indicating a Waterloo.
And a dispatch from Gen. Ransom from the south side of the river, states that Butler’s army is retreating to the transports. This is regarded as confirmation of Lee’s victory.
Several dispatches from Gen. Stuart state that the raiders have been severely beaten in several combats this morning, and are flying toward Dover Mills. They may come back, for they have not heard of Grant’s defeat.
Mr. Memminger is said to have been frightened terribly, and arrangements were made for flight.
May 12th.—Thunder, lightning, and rain all day.
The report of Gen. Lee’s victory was premature, and Butler has not gone, nor the raiders vanished. On the contrary, the latter were engaged in battle with Stuart’s division late in the afternoon, and recommenced it this morning at 3 o’clock, the enemy remaining on the ground, and still remain, some five miles from where I write. Major-Gen. J. E. B. Stuart was wounded last evening, through the kidney, and now lies in the city, in a dying condition! Our best generals thus fall around us.
The battle raged furiously; every gun distinctly heard at our house until 1 p.m.—the enemy being intrenched between our middle and outer line of works. Meantime our ambulances are arriving every hour with the wounded, coming in by the Brooke Turnpike.
The battalion my sons are in lost none of its men, though shelled by the enemy early in the morning; nor do we know that our battery did any execution. Capt. Warner delivered the provisions their mother cooked for them yesterday. He saw only Custis, who gladly received the bread, and meat, and eggs; but he and Tom were both drenched with rain, as they had no shelter yesterday. But a comrade, and one of Custis’s Latin pupils, whom I saw, returned on sick leave, says Thomas stands the fatigue and exposure better than Custis, who was complaining.