HEADQUARTERS VIRGINIA FORCES,
Richmond, Va., May 19, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel GEORGE H. TERRETT,

Commanding at Alexandria, Va.:

COLONEL: Major-General Lee instructs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of May 16.* It is very important to secure the rolling stock of the Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, but General Lee thinks it would be quite as much exposed to seizure by the enemy at any point on that road near Alexandria as in the town itself. If taken up that road for safety, it should be taken to Leesburg or its vicinity. General Lee thinks it would be better (if practicable) to obtain the co-operation of the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire and the Alexandria and Orange Railroad Companies in the construction of a temporary track connecting the two track of the Orange and Alexandria Road at night, as a precautionary measure.

I am, &c.,

JNO. A. WASHINGTON,

Aide-de-Camp.

HEADQUARTERS VIRGINIA FORCES,
Richmond, Va., May 20, 1861.

Colonel C. DIMMOCK,

Ordnance Department:

COLONEL: Major-General Lee request that you will send to Colonel B. S. Ewell, at Williamsburg, four hundred original percussion muskets and five thousand rounds of ammunition. They are to be sent by the steamer to King's Mill wharf.

Very respectfully, &c.,

JNO. M. BROOKE,

Virginia Navy and Acting Aide-de-Camp, &c.

HEADQUARTERS VIRGINIA FORCES,
Richmond, Va., May 20, 1861.

Colonel J. A. EARLY,

Lynchburg, Va.:

SIR: In reply to your letters of the 16th and 17th instant,+ the commanding-general now instructs me to say that he has this day ordered the Ordnance Department to forward to your address one thousand original percussion muskets, one thousand altered, and one thousand fling locks, and sixty thousand rounds of ammunition, to be issued by you to such companies of Virginia volunteers without arms as may be mustered in at Lynchburg, or arrive there already mustered in. The ten companies which you have reported may be organized into a regiment, to the command of which you may assign Colonel Radford, if they are the companies raised by him and reported to the governor. If they be not, you may assign Colonel Radford, or any other colonel, and field officers to them as may be deemed best, observing the rule as far as practicable to associate together companies and field officers from the same region of country. As soon as this regiment is organized and

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*Not found.

+Letter of 17th not found.

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