On June 8, after notifying General Schenck of the threatened raid by Stuart, he say: I can only repeat the recommendation so often made to you, to mass your troops more in convenient places for rapid and concerted operations, exposing no large force in advanced position, where they are liable to be cut off . We shall not know the direction or intention of this raid until it is actually in motion ; hence the necessity for keeping your forces well in hand for a sudden movement.

On June 11, he telegraphs: Harper's Ferry is the important place . Winchester is of no importance other than as a lookout . The Winchester troops, excepting enough to serve as an outpost, should be withdrawn to Harper's Ferry .

On June 14, he telegraphs: I have so repeatedly urged you to withdraw your main forces from Winchester, and so recently(the 1th), directed it, that I cannot understand how Milroy could have been left there to be invested . I repeat, you must concentrate on Harper's Ferry, not on Winchester . If General Milroy does not obey your orders, remove him from command .

On June 14, he further telegraphs: If you have not executed my orders to concentrate at Harper's Ferry, you will do so immediately . Unless there is a more prompt obedience of orders, there must be a change in the commanders . See to this immediately . On June 15, the day of the evacuation of Winchester, he telegraphs: Don't fail to put every man not required as vedettes into Harper's Ferry defenses . There must be no delay . Detached forces will be wiped out . Of these telegrams, General Schenck states in his testimony that he regarded them as expressing suggestions and advice merely, and he says that, notwithstanding these suggestions, he adhered, and as he still thinks, rightly, to his own idea, particularly as to Winchester, where, the post not being connected by railroad with Harper's Ferry, and not being within easy supporting distance, a small force would, he thought, be inevitably lost . He states that General Halleck never, as he (Schenck) understood him, peremptorily ordered or insisted upon the abandonment of Winchester . But upon examination of these telegrams, it certainly would not appear that all of them were intended by the General-in-Chief. as advisory or suggestive merely . That of May 8, beginning " You will maintain only a small force at Winchester, "&c., is certainly in the form of an order ; and though in the telegram of June 8, he says, " I can only repeat the recommendation so often made, "&c., yet this term is rather used by him in connection with his views concerning the concentration of troops generally, and not in reference to the particular disposition of the forces at Winchester or any other post. The telegram of June 11 is quite positively expressed, and in that of the 14th it is referred to in terms as a direction, and the General-in-Chief. expresses himself at a loss to understand why, after his previous directions and urging, General Milroy should have been left at Winchester to be invested . The second telegram of this date is a positive order ; alluded to former orders, and adds: Unless there is more prompt obedience of orders, there must be a change of commanders . From this analysis, it would be inferred that these directions of the General-in-Chief., though sometimes not urged as forcibly as at others, were certainly intended, at least on and after June 11, to be