Affairs on the Peninsula.
Information from the Peninsula is up to Saturday last. The Yankee advance pickets were six miles from Williamsburg. During the retreat about 20,000 passed over the route by Diaskon bridge, and stripped the whole country through which they traveled of everything like provisions for man and beast. Their wagons were driven into the fields, the corn pulled and loaded up, and then they would drive on. What they could not take they destroyed. At Eltham they fired a burn containing 500 bushels of wheat, after first sprinkling the floor with sulphur to render it more combustible. They burned Mrs. Caroline Christian's house, at the Forge, in New Kent, and Wm. A. Blayton's house, near Diaskon bridge, was also destroyed. --Several houses in the vicinity were tern down, and the timber used to rebuild the bridge which had been tern up by our troops in their retreat from Yorktown. Among those who left with the Yankees were M. C. Gilman, of the 3d Virginia cavalry, and John Jennings, of the 53d Virginia infantry. At every step of the march the Yankees were fearful of and expected an attack from our troops. There are about 800 or 1,000 Yankee troops in Williamsburg.Deserters have informed our troops where many secreted arms were. About 125 Enfield rifles arrived at the York River depot yesterday, which ware discovered at the White House by their information. The same parties offered to guide our men to where 1,500 pistols had been hidden. The county of New Kent is literally laid waste. Its citizens have lost everything. One of them, Mr. O. H. Taylor, a scout in our army, lost $450 worth of provender by one squad of three Yankees, who loaded their wagons and went off. The citizens of that county and the country through which the enemy passed, except on the river banks, are really suffering for food and anxiously expect our Government to take some steps for their relief. One gentleman. Mr. Beverley Anderson, has offered to sell his corn which he saved, at $4 a barrel to those in need and it is hoped that those as fortunate as he may be as liberal.
Many of the Yankee troops visiting the farm houses on the retreat, expressed the wish that the d — d war was over and they were at home."
