From the Valley.
[correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch.]Camp near Mount Crawford,
Augusta county, Virginia,
We captured about fifty head, and pressed so hard upon them that they failed to burn the bridge across the river. They set fire to it, as well as Sherman's mill, near it; but our boys pressed on and put out the fire before any damage was done. We saved one hundred and fifty barrels of flour and one thousand bushels of wheat at this mill. The fiendish spirit of the enemy has been fully exhibited in their raid between this point and Staunton. Almost every barn was burned — scarcely one now remaining — and those who, a few days ago, had harvested such abundant crops that their barns would scarce contain them, are now without a sufficiency for their own consumption. It is distressing to hear of such wanton destruction.
This will teach us a new lesson when we again visit the fertile valleys beyond the Potomac.
The force which visited this section was cavalry alone, numbering about eight thousand.
The main body of their army has not advanced much farther than Harrison burg, according to the best accounts.
I never felt more forcibly the real evil of war than on yesterday, when I visited the residence of widow Grattan, near Mount. Crawford. The house was entirely deserted, and had the "weird sisters" of Macbeth held their nocturnal revels in it for months, the destruction and wanton waste of property of every description could not have been surpassed. Every drawer and every closet was ransacked, and the contents torn up and scattered in every conceivable manner over the floor. I saw nothing which seemed to be uninjured. Empty jars, lately filled with preserves, lard, &c., were scattered about the porch and yard. Feathers were scattered in every room; and books, letters and papers — some very valuable — were trampled in the dirt in every direction. A large map, hanging in the hall, and the piano, were the only things which seemed to have escaped the general confusion. --The latter, however, had several of its keys stripped of ivory. Nor did they confine their pillaging to private property and such things as are of use to the Government. Even the finest specimens of natural beauty were sacrificed to their love of destruction. I visited Weyer's Cave the morning after the Yankees had left. Here many of the beautiful scenes so graphically depicted by Porte Crayon were broken to pieces and much injured by the universal desire of sending something to home as captured from the rebels.
Perhaps Porte Crayon himself took this occasion to carry off some of the most coveted pieces, as we are told he was with that army.
As it may be of interest to these who are acquainted with the cave, I will state the names of those parts most injured by the enemy. "The Bricle's Cake" was more injured than anything else.
"The Chandelier" and "The Gallery" were much robbed, and in "The Garden of Eden" many marks of them are left.
Strange to say, I saw no mark of their crossing "The River Styx;" but perhaps so many of them had crossed it near Winchester that those remaining were loth to follow.
