Bells rang and drums beat, and presently long trains of railway wagons, heavily laden, began to make their way across the bridge.

Until next morning the movement continued unceasingly; by that time all the military stores and public property, together with as much private property, belonging to inhabitants who had decided to forsake their homes for a time rather than to remain there when the town was occupied by the enemy, as could be carried on in the available wagons, had been taken across the bridge.

A party of engineers, who had been all night hard at work, then set fire both to the railway bridge across the river and the public buildings in the town.

The main body of troops had moved across in the evening.

The rearguard passed when all was in readiness for the destruction of the bridge.
General Johnston had been preparing for the movement for some time; he had foreseen that the position must be evacuated as soon as the enemy began to advance upon either of his flanks, and a considerable portion of his baggage and military stores had some time previously been sent into the interior of Virginia.