chess. I am using the chess wagons for hauling forage and for other purposes, but they can be loaded at any time at an hour's notice. I have also twenty-five other serviceable pontoons in camp, which I shall have parked to-day in a train by themselves, with four trestles and two abutments. In addition to the above mentioned sixty-one serviceable pontoons, I find there are forty-two pontoons unserviceable. Some of these require considerable repairs; others are but slightly damaged. Nine of them I sent to Belle Plain yesterday. I shall send about twenty-five more to-day, and the remainder to-morrow-about forty pontoons, all more or less damaged by bullets, ranging from two to twenty and twenty-five bullet-holes per boat, and one pontoon has thirty-five bulletholes through it. Two pontoons were badly damaged, one by a fragment of shell and one by a solid shot.

Very respectfully,

I. SPAULDING,

Major Fiftieth New York Engineers, Commanding Detachment.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, December 26, 1862.

Major-General BURNSIDE,

Falmouth, Va.:

General Kelley reports that the enemy are reappearing in large force at Strasburg and Front Royal, and it is probable that he will take advantage of the vicinity of the Army of the Potomac to make another raid on Harper's Ferry. This is certainly very disheartening. We have no forces here to send to Harper's Ferry, without again stripping Washington. I am almost at a loss what to say or do.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
December 26, 1862-4 p.m. (Received 4 p.m.)

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief:

You can take the whole of General Slocum's corps, if you choose, and I will replace him with General Sigel's. I will communicate further in half an hour.

A. E. BURNSIDE,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
December 26, 1862-7.30 p.m.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief, Washington:

Do you desire the whole of General Slocum's corps? If you desire it, I will order him to at once proceed to Harper's Ferry, and replace him by General Sigel's command.

A. E. BURNSIDE,

Major-General.