HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN VIRGINIA,
Dublin, March 17, 1863.

Brigadier General HUMPHREY MARSHALL, Commanding, &c.:

GENERAL: Your letter of the 13th instant was received yesterday. If you and Pegram are moving into Kentucky under the impression that Brigadier-General Jenkins, of my command, would move at the same time down the Sunday with about 2,000 cavalry, and there join you about the time Pegram would, you are in error. I suggested to you by letter that a simultaneous movement by you, Pegram, and Jenkins, on the lines you mention, would, I thought, be productive of good results, and I certainly thought that if you decided to act on the suggestion you would notify me of it. If Jenkins' men were to move, it was especially necessary that I should have been notified of your intention to act on my suggestion, because my cavalry was farther removed from the scene of proposed action than either yours or Pegram's. But I never heard from you in reply; did not even know that you had received my letter until yesterday, nineteen days after my letter was written. Pegram can hardly, I think, be under the impression that Jenkins is to co-operate with you with 2,000 cavalry, for you tell me that he (Pegram) had seen and conferred with General J. E. Johnston on the subject. Johnston must have received a letter from me of the 2nd instant before Pegram saw him, and, if so, he (Pegram) could not have left under such an erroneous impression.

Having no information whatever from you ar any one else that my suggestion would be acted on, I have sent Jenkins with a part of his men, dismounted, to the Lower Kanawha. It may be that he will be in the northeastern part of Kentucky before he returns. He and some of General Floyd's men will, I think, sufficiently engage the attention of the small force of the enemy on the Lower Sandy to prevent them from interfering with you. If you and Pegram move with about 2,000 men each, you will, with Colonel [R. S.] Cluke's fifteen companies near Mount Sterling, have force enough to accomplish much, and I wish you both all manner of success.

General Jenkins' aide-de-camp was mistaken in supposing that I had charged him "with the mission to secure a detachment from you, to make a close reconnaissance of the force on the Sunday." He went to you to endeavor to get possession of two partisan ranger companies on the border of Tennessee and Virginia that have been doing nothing for a long time, and I authorized him to say that, if you thought proper they might render some service by moving down the Sandy, where they could probably at least find forage.

I send this by special messenger to your headquarters, to be forwarded from thence to you. I hope you will receive it in time to prevent your making any move which you would not make except with the understanding that Jenkins will co-operate with you.

Very respectfully and truly,

SAM. JONES,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN VIRGINIA,
Dublin, March 17, 1864.

Brigadier General JOHN S. WILLIAMS,

Commanding, Salt Sulphur Springs:

GENERAL: The major-general commanding directs you to have the Forty-fifth [Virginia] Regiment in readiness to move on Raleigh Court-