guns will be very acceptable for this or this or the Buckhannon Pass. If I could get two others, it would give me the bronze batteries for service with my movable force. I have been waiting anxiously for a quartermaster of experience, but none has yet appeared. It would relieve me of much labor and anxiety if I had a competent officer to take these duties off my shoulders. The muster rolls have not yet arrived.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. S. GARNETT,

Brigadier-General.

P. S.- Unless I have been misinformed as to the state of feeling among the people and the condition of things in the Kanawha Valley, it is my opinion that General Wise's command could be of more service to the cause by operating in the direction of Parkersburg and the Northwestern Railroad. It would produce a very effective diversion in favor of the operations fork this point.

R. S. GARNETT,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS,
Richmond, va., July 5, 1861.

General R. S. GARNETT, Laurel Hill, Va.:

GENERAL: In answer to your letter of the 1st instant, just received, I have the honor to state that the Forty-fourth regiment, Colonel W. C. Scott. left here on the 2nd instant for your command. there has been some delay in preparing the Georgia regiment for the field, but I hope to get it off to-morrow. It consist of over one thousand men, commanded by Colonel Edward Johnson, an officer of experience. On the following day I will dispatch a North Carolina regiment, commanded by Colonel Stephen lee, twelve hundred strong. I will endeavor to send you two other field pieces. I will again apply to Colonel Myers for a quartermaster of experience for your command.

Respectfully,

R. E. LEE,

General, Commanding.

HDQRS. DEP'T OF NORTHWESTERN VIRGINIA,
Camp at Laurel Hill, Va., July 6, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel GEORGE DEAS,

Assistant Adjutant and Inspector General:

COLONEL: In the postscript to a communication which I had the honor to address to you a few days ago, I ventured to suggest the expediency of giving a more northerly direction to General Wise's column, in order to threaten the railroad and county east of Parkersburg, now in possession of the enemy. Some subsequent information has confirmed me in my convictions as to the propriety of such a movement. I learned a day or two since, from sources in my front, that twenty-eight hundred men, who had been put upon light-draught steamers in Pittsburg to operate in the Kanawha Valley, were diverted from that purpose and landed at Parkersburg, from which place they came to Clarksburg and thence to Buckhannon, where, with others from Philippi, to the number, it is said, of three or four thousand, they have now taken up their position, with a supporting force at Weston and at Clarksburg - numbers unknown. This latter point, it is said, they are fortifying,