as would give you exact knowledge of its roads and general topography, and enable you to select a line of greater natural advantages than that now occupied by your forces. The heavy guns at Manassas and Evansport, needed elsewhere and reported to be useless in their present position, would necessarily be abandoned in any hasty retreat. I regret that you find it impossible to move them. The subsistence stores should, when removed, be placed in position to answer your future wants; those cannot be determined until you have furnished definite information as to your plans, especially the lien to which you would remove in the contingency of retiring. The Commissary-General had previously stopped further shipments to your army, and gives satisfactory reasons for the establishment of a packing establishment at Thoroughfare..

Increased effort has recently been made to raise men in this State, and it has even been promised that your force should be raised to more than 100,000 effective troops. If that were done, your present position would answer the purpose for which it seemed to me suited-a base from which to advance in co-operation with the armies of Aquia and the valley..

In the mean time, and with your present force, you cannot secure your communication from the enemy, and may at any time, when he can pass to your rear, be compelled to retreat at the sacrifice of your siege train and army stores, and without any preparation on a second line to receive your army as it retired. As heretofore stated in conversation with you, it is needful that the armies on the north, the east, and the proximate south of this capital should be so disposed as to support each other. With the present strength and position the armies under your command are entirely separated from the others..

Threatened as we are by a large force on the southeast, you must see the hazard of your position, by its liability to isolation and attack in rear, should we be beaten on the lines south and east of Richmond; and that reflection is connected with consideration of the fatal effect which the disaster contemplated would have upon the cause of the Confederacy. Two questions therefore press upon us for solution. First, how can your army best serve to prevent the advance of the enemy while the want of force compels you to stand on the defensive? Second, what dispositions can you and should you make to enable you most promptly to co-operate with other columns, in the event of disaster to their forces or to yours, and of consequent danger to the capital?

I need not urge on your consideration the value to our country of arms and munitions of war. You know the difficulty with which we have obtained our present small supply, and that to furnish heavy artillery to the advance posts we have exhausted the supplies here, which were designed for the armament of the city defenses. Whatever can be should be done to avoid the loss of those guns. The letter of General Jackson presents the danger with which he is threatened and the force he requires to meet it. It is unnecessary for me to say that I have not the force to send, and have no other hope of his re-enforcement than by the militia of the valley. Assurances have been given to me that they were rallying to his support, but you are no doubt aware of what has been done and is doing in that regard..

Anxious as heretofore to hold and defend the valley, that object must be so pursued as to avoid the sacrifice of the army now holding it or the loss of the arms in store and in use there..

As has been my custom, I have only sought to present general purposes and views. I rely upon your special knowledge and high ability to effect whatever is practicable in this our hour of need.