HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PENINSULA,
Lee's Farm, April 8, 1862.

General RAINS:

SIR: When troops arrive at Yorktown you will communicate with these headquarters by telegraph (when the lines is working, or by a courier if it is not) the fact, giving the name of the regiment, its colonel, brigade, and division, encamping them inside the works until you receive orders in regard to the disposition that may be made of them.

I desire to make Yorktown the place to receive all troops that have not been assigned to positions, thereby to have it as strong all the time as possible, and to keep it so under any circumstances. On this subject you will receive precise instructions from me.

The letter which you received ordering you to send the Eighth South Carolina, Kershaw's brigade, contained an inaccuracy, originating in this office. It should have been the Seventh South Carolina. Send the Seventh forthwith to Lebanon. You will keep some one on the wharf all the time to report to you the arrival of troops, and I have just ordered a company of cavalry to report to you for the purpose of acting as guides and bringing me immediate information of the arrivals.

These troops will in every instance, to avoid being observed by the enemy, be sent via the Williamsburg road, turning to the left at Eagle's and to the right when it enters the Grove Wharf road.

J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PENINSULA,
Lee's Farm, April 8, 1862.

General G. J. RAINS,

Commanding First Division:

SIR: I am instructed by the commanding general to direct you to have the lines occupied by the command of Colonel Crump and also the portion which enfilade the large ravines in front of Redoubt No. 4 strengthened as much as you may deem necessary, and to have traverses constructed to protect the men defending those lines being taken in reverse from a fire from the enemy's shipping.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. T. DOUGLAS,

Lieutenant of Engineers, C. S. Army.

HEADQUARTERS,
Lee's Farm, April 8, 1862.

Major-General McLAWS:

GENERAL: Three regiments of General Early's brigade (now at Lebanon Church, viz, Colonel Terry's Twenty-fourth Virginia, Colonel McRae's Fifth North Carolina, and Colonel Cumming's Twentieth Georgia) and Colonel Williams' South Carolina regiment, now at the cross-roads half a mile below, will move at early dawn to-morrow morning, and will report by a staff officer to you, awaiting at the cross-roads, each [such] orders as you may send them, provided there should be any move of the enemy on your right to cross the river which will make such orders necessary.