without giving me notice. I suppose that, upon occasion, your troops could make themselves log huts in a few days. Here we can't find the logs where the huts will be wanted.

Very truly, yours,

J. E. JOHNSTON,

General.

We have just received a report from Stuart that our pickets at Fairfax Court-House have been driven in, and that a large force is gathered at Springfield, on the railroad, 7 miles beyond.

HEADQUARTERS VALLEY DISTRICT,
Winchester, Va., November 12, 1861.

Major THOMAS G. RHETT,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Hdqrs. Dept. of Western Virginia:

MAJOR: The enemy at Romney are, from the most reliable information, near 6,000 strong, and are fortifying the town.

Before leaving Centreville I had a conversation with the general commanding the department respecting his ordering Lieutenant Colonel T. H. Williamson, Corps of Engineers, to this district, and he expressed a willing-ness to do so when Captain Stevens should recover his health. If Lieutenant-Colonel Williamson can, consistently with the interests of the public service, be ordered here, I respectfully request that it may be done at as early a period as practicable, as his services are much needed.

Please send me all the practicable, as his services are much needed. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is so damaged by the late freshest as not to be boatable.

Your most obedient servant,.

T. J. JACKSON,

Major-General, Commanding Valley District.

HEADQUARTERS, Centreville, November 12, 1861.

Brigadier-General WHITING:

MY DEAR GENERAL: I have received your note of this morning. The local you describe seems to me better than that of Evansport. To a question by telegraph General Coopers replied to-day that the guns you asked for should be sent without delay. This does not encourage me much as to time. In Richmond their ideas of promptitude are very different from ours. By the way, have you seen General Trimble's arrangements for land defense? If my ideas of the ground, given by a pencil sketch, are at all correct, they amount to nothing. A few of Dahlgren's boat howitzers would knock them to pieces from the hills in rear.

I have very little apprehension of harm from the bombardment of a mere line like those batteries; nothing is necessary but shelter against the fragments of shells, which burst high. At the distance of 2 miles they cannot kill a man a day. I fear landing in force. It is, as you say, that which Holmes and yourself must look out for. I wish the heights in rear of the batteries were converted into an entrenched camp to enable a couple of regiments to hold out for several days. How is your position compared with the other in respect to defensibility on the land side? If you can prepare for the guns now, why not do it, if it can be done without danger of discovery by the enemy? We have had another.