Yankee Doings in the Valley.
By a private letter, dated August 25th, received by a gentleman in this city from Charlestown, we learn that the Yankees, under Sheridan, have spread desolation throughout Jefferson county. Says the writer: "Our wealthiest farmers are stripped of everything. Mr. Richard Washington, for instance, had everything he had taken from him; even the ladies' clothes were torn to pieces. Mr. Robert W. Baylor has been served the same way; also, Messrs. Bushrod W. Herbert, Frank Hooff, John Hammond, and a number of other gentlemen. They had commenced their work of destruction at Mr. Lawrence Hooff's, when, hearing the firing of our guns, they were frightened off. They staid long enough, however, to take five horses and to break up the furniture. In the town, they had not commenced their work of destruction when they were chased out.--Many think that the burning of Chambersburg was the salvation of this place. Sheridan has sent North, Mr. Peyton Brown, Mr. George Saddler, Mr. William Henson and Mr. Harrison Anderson."Mr. John S. Robertson, of Martinsburg, who came to Richmond on the outbreak of the war, leaving his family, recently returned home on a visit.--When he reached there he found one of his daughters in a dying condition and another very ill. In a few hours after his arrival one of them died and the other grew worse while they were burying her sister. The father was at her grave; and after the funeral ceremonies were over, he hastened home to witness the sufferings of the other, when he was met a few yards from his house by a band of armed Yankees, who placed before him the alternative of taking the Yankee oath and remaining with his family, or imprisonment upon his refusal to do so. He spurned their conditions, and was dragged away without even being permitted to bid his only surviving and dying daughter farewell.
