From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/3/1863, p. 1, c. 3

Robberies on the Suburbs. – In noticing a few days since the numerous robberies of fowls and other articles of food constantly occurring on the suburbs, we said that the losers in nearly all of the cases coming under notice laid the blame on the “battery soldiers.” In doing this the assertion of the parties interested in the matter were of course given. An indignant member of “No. 8,” in a communication dated yesterday, couched in language more noted for its strength than either politeness or gentility, comes to the rescue of a company who were not alluded to in the item to which exception was taken. He certifies that all the members of that company are gentlemen. This may be so, yet this correspondent would hardly vouch for the immaculateness of all the battery soldiers. If he did, the ghosts of thousands of hens, chickens, ducks, geese, and hogs, not to speak of animals of a larger growth, surreptitiously conveyed away, would rise up in judgment. He says one thing in which all will agree: “There are in this city a very large gang of cut throats and robbers.” A man skeptical on this point need only to have walked down Main and Cary streets yesterday, about 10 o’clock, to have been amply convinced.

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