tons) running between here and the Chesapeake. It would be great economy if you could get the General Government to form a depot of coal at Fort Monroe for transports to buy there at cost.

Since ordering the above we hear that the Potomac is open and also that our troops at Washington are suffering for certain supplies. In view of the difficulty of getting stores across from Annapolis, we have decided, unless we get other information before she sails, to give the captain sealed orders to go directly up the Potomac after landing at Fort Monroe, with or without convoy of a war ship, unless she gets at Fort Monroe, or on the way up other orders from General Scott, whom we inform of her movements.

Should you have reason to suppose that there is very great hazard in going up the Potomac, or have any information bearing on the subject that requires action, please call General Scott's attention to the subject. You may also be able to send down to Fort Monroe by return transport any important information which would justify Captain Matthews to await at Fort Monroe or at the mouth of the Potomac further orders from General Scott.

Please note that we intend to clear her from Annapolis here, in order to avoid publishing through the telegraph that we are sending Massachusetts troops up the Potomac. The Pembroke, being of iron and more vulnerable than this ship, will be less suitable to ho up the Potomac, where she might be exposed to a land battery.

The Cambridge ought to reach Fort Monroe between Friday at sundown and Saturday morning.

Yours, faithfully,

JOHN A. ANDDREW,

Governor.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON,
April 30, 1861.

Major IRVIN McDOWELL, Assistant Adjutant-General:

Dispatch immediately two companies of Pennsylvania volunteers to the navy-yard, with instructions they be sent forthwith in a steamer to re-enforce Fort Washington. Let them take their to-day's provisions in their haversacks.

J. K. F. MANSFIELD,

Colonel, Commanding.

WASHINGTON, May 1, 1861.

Major-General PATTERSON, U. S. A., Commanding, &c.:

SIR: I am glad to learn that Brigadier-General Butler has re-enforced Fort McHenry, and hope that Major W. W. Morris may be soon sent there to command.

We still need eight or nine additional regiments of volunteers to give to this capital a reasonable security against a threatened attack. All the troops which have arrived here have been and are, with the exception of the Seventh New York Regiment, without camp equipage, and several regiments without accouterments.

In those essentials, we are here, and everywhere else, most deficient, although I gave orders to the Quartermaster-General five weeks ago on the subject of camp equipage, and to the Ordnance Department at the same time on the subject of the accouterments, and each order has been often repeated since.