Richmond (VA) Daily Dispatch, "Yankee Depredations in Eastern North Carolina," July 29, 1862

      YANKEE DEPREDATIONS IN EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA.

   A gentleman who left South Mills, N.C., a few days since, informs us that on Sunday, the 20th inst., a party of some fifty Yankees visited that neighborhood, coming from Norfolk, and having with them half a dozen negro men in arms. These negroes, it was subsequently ascertained, had run away from that place some ten days previous, and had now come back after their wives and children. They succeeded in obtaining them, and during the night about one hundred other negroes joined the party, when they marched off in the direction of Norfolk. A few days before this occurrence a considerable number of negroes had made their escape, and a young man from Pasquotank county, named Job Williams, secreted himself, in company with several others, near the line house, with a view to intercept and capture them. At a late hour of the night some forty negroes made their appearance, armed with pistols and cudgels, and, discovering Mr. W.'s place of concealment, one of them fired and shot him through the femoral artery. Before falling he discharged both barrels of his gun, when the negroes fled. Mr. W. was taken by his associates to the hotel, where he died before a physician could reach him. On the succeeding day a negro man was brought back by a gentleman who found him on the road with a severe, and probably fatal, gunshot wound through the abdomen. The stampede of negroes from Eastern North Carolina is so great that unless strong guerrilla parties are immediately formed and sent thither, it is thought that the country will be entirely drained of its slave population in a short time.