HEADQUARTERS,
Richmond, May 18, 1862.

General JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON,

Commanding Army of Northern Virginia:

GENERAL: I am directed by the President to say that, in locating your troops in the neighborhood of Richmond, he requests you will give strict orders that the residences, inclosures, gardens, &c., shall be strictly respected. Besides the individual injury that will otherwise result, the feelings of the people, now thoroughly enlisted in aid of the operations of the army, may be alienated from it.

He desires also that private houses be not taken for the use of the army without the consent of the owners and to their discomfort, as it has been stated to him in some instances has been done, no doubt without your knowledge.

As you are now so convenient to the city the President wishes you to confer with him upon your future plans, and for that purpose desires you to see him at his office.

Please say when it will be convenient for you to come in.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

R. E. Lee,

General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,

Richmond, Va., May 19, 1862.

General JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON,

Commanding Department of Northern Virginia:

GENERAL: I inclose you an account for stock and corn taken by the army during the recent movement up the Peninsula, and request that you will cause inquiry to be made for the purpose of ascertaining what commissary and quartermaster should settle it.

I am instructed by the President to call your attention to the habit in which many of the regiments have fallen of burning the fences near their encampments and bivouacs, and I must request that you will issue orders requiring the 983 paragraph of the Army Regulations to be executed by the quartermasters of the respective brigades or regiments. Unless the destruction of fences can be arrested it will materially lessen the crop of the State and impair the power of the Government to subsist the Army. In all cases where injury is done to the locality in which troops are encamped it will be charged to the quartermaster, unless he inspects the premises and reports the regiment or company doing the damage and the extent of it, as required by the regulations quoted above; and in case such report is made the damage will be deducted from the pay of the parties inflicting the injury. I desire that you will make this known in your general orders.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War.

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

Numbers 53. May 19, 1862.

Major W. B. Blair, chief commissary of subsistence, C. S. Army, hav