mander, who is also assigned to the command of the Maryland Home Guards raised in that quarter. General Banks will protect the portion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal lying between Cumberland and the Monocacy River..

17. The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth New Jersey Volunteers will constitute a brigade, to be commanded for the present by the senior colonel, and will form part of the division of Brigadier-General Hooker, which they will join with as little delay as practicable. Brigadier-General Casey will arrange with Brigadier-General Van Vliet, chief quartermaster, as to the route and means of transportation..

* * * * *

By command of Major-General McClellan:.

S. WILLIAMS,.

Assistant Adjutant-General..

[NOVEMBER 29, 1861.]

Brigadier General CHARLES P. STONE, Commanding at Poolesville:.

Please inform General Hill that I have no wish to protect robbers, and that I will cordially untie in any proper effort to repress marauding. If he will turn these men over to me, with the evidence necessary to convict them before a commission, they shall be tried and punished in good faith. Say to him that I have no plea to interpose for men who have disobeyed my orders by tearing, except to recommend the utmost care and reflection in the infliction of a punishment which, although just, may lead to reprisals beyond my power to control, and may lend to this contest a degree of ferocity which I desire to avoid..

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,.

Major-General, Commanding U. S. Army..

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN VIRGINIA,.

Camp Gauley Mountain, Virginia, November 29, 1861.

Brigadier General L. THOMAS, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to say, for the information of the Commanding General, that I am so far convalescent as to be able to attend to business..

On the 26th instant I found it necessary to arrest Brigadier General H. W. Benham for unofficer-like neglect of duty. He applied for a leave of absence on a medical certificate, with permission to visit a city, and has gone to New York..

The Tenth and Ninth Ohio are probably at Covington, or farther, on their way to join the command of General Buell. The Thirteenth, detained by the state of the roads, will probably go down to-day or to-morrow. No pen can describe the desperate condition of the roads; they are next to impassable. They are the military obstacle of the remainder of the season..

Presuming the Commanding General has no special directions to give about matters I have been presenting for his consideration relative to this department and the contiguous part of the State of Ohio, I have made the following dispositions of the forces in this valley, and shall proceed to Wheeling as soon as practicable:

First. At Fayetteville, Schenck's brigade, cantoned in secession houses, deserted by their inhabitants, to be entrenched..