The most important event of the past week was the evacuation of Harper’s Ferry on Friday last by the Confederate troops. This step had so often been predicted, and denied with, such confident assertions of the impregnable fortifications erected there and of the determination of the Confederate leaders to make it the chosen point for a desperate stand, that the first reports were received with doubts and incredulity.— Confirmatory statements, however, of the withdrawal of pickets from all points above and below the Ferry, of the burning of the railroad bridge, and the destruction of provisions they were unable to carry off, finally confirmed the evacuation. The troops left in two columns. One column going toward Winchester with the presumed intention of joining the force at Manassas Junction ; the other retreating through Loudon county toward Leesburg. Col. Stone’s column of United States troops is in that vicinity, though it is supposed on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and a collision is among the contingencies.
Before leaving Harper’s Ferry the Confederates destroyed all the public property in the vicinity. The fine bridge, including the Winchester span, over one thousand feet in length, was burnt. The railroad trestle work, along the Potomac side of the town is also reported to have been destroyed. The Government Armory buildings were burnt. The machinery, it is understood, had previously been removed to Richmond. The railroad bridge at Martinsburg and the turnpike bridge over the Potomac at Shepherdstown were also destroyed.
Hagerstown, June 15. —The express messenger of the Associated Press returned from Harper’s Ferry this evening, where he spent several hours. He saw that all the Government buildings save two had been destroyed. The trestle work, three hundred yards in length, still hung in ruins. The bridge over the Shenandoah was still standing. People were moving up and down the canal on the opposite side of the river freely, although there were still a few sentinels on the river shore, and two camps on the heights behind the town containing six hundred of the remaining troops, all of whom would be gone by to-night, to follow the main body to Winchester. The greater part of the fourteen thousand troops stationed at the Ferry go Southward, to join Generals Beauregard and Lee’s forces.— The smaller body, it is believed, will march to join General Henry A. Wise, near Romney, who is to oppose the advance of General McClellan’s column from the West. General Wise has three thousand men at Staunton, one regiment of which is already on the march. A great number of small arms, said to be as many as one thousand, were thrown into the river by the Confederates before they commenced to evacuate the Ferry. Also a quantity of accoutrements. Boys and men were recovering them by diving. The whole place wears a desolate appearance some of the large guns only have been removed a distance of six miles up the Shenandoah. It was reported at Harper’s Ferry that all the engines below Opequan have been destroyed, also those at Martinsburg, numbering upwards of seventy at both places. The pickets of the Confederates opposite Williamsport returned tonight, firing upon the Federal forces, after an absence of two days. They are also reported to have returned to other fords. Ex-Governor Manning brought the order to evacuate Harper’s Ferry.
Port Tobacco Times, and Charles County Advertiser, Port Tobacco, MD