Williamsburg. It is extremely embarrassing at the present time to break in on the existing brigade organizations, as I am compelled to do to supply these garrison.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
Capm at Roper's Church, May 12, 1862.

(Received May 13, 11.30 p. m.)

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

Commander Rodgers writes me to-day that he went with the gunboats yesterday past Little Brandon. Everything quiet and no signs of troops crossing the river. He found two batteries of ten or twelve guns each on the south side of James River - one opposite the mouth of the Warwick, the other about southwest from Mulberry Point. The upper battery on Harden's or Mother Line's Bluff has heavy rifled pieces. Between the batteries lay the Jamestown and Yorktown. Commander Rodgers offered battle, but the gunboats moved off. He silenced one battery, and finding it required too much ammunition to silence the other ran past it.

Rodgers says the Galena cannot use her engines when aground, the valve-pipes and condenser becoming clogged with sand, &c. He says that the channel marks are all changed; that the Galena will almost certainly run aground she is to a great degree paralyzed.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA,
Fort Monroe, May 12, 1862.

Major General GEORGE B. McCLELLAN,

Commanding Army of the Potomac, Williamsburg:

SIR: The Merrimac is blown up. Our vessels of was have gone up James River; among others the Monitor.

Your flank will be protected on the James River. A small detachment will answer for Yorktown.

I want all my troops. I intend going to Suffolk, leaving a few troops at Newport News and a sufficient force at Fort Monroe.

Very respectfully, your obedience servant,

JOHN E. WOOL,

Major-General, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,

No. 123. Camp at Roper's Meeting-House, Va., May 12, 1862.

I. Hereafter no newspaper correspondent or other citizen not in the military service will be allowed to go to the front beyond General Headquarters, or to accompany the guard or any of the advanced divisions on the march.

II. All passes to newspaper correspondents to accompany the army will be signed by Brigadier General R. B. Marcy, chief of staff. No others will be recognized.