[Indorsements.]

HDQRS. CAV. DIV., ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
July 15, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded, and recommended that he be relieved from duty with this command accordingly.

J. E. B. STUART,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
August 5, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office. In accordance with this request of Brigadier-General Robertson, and in consequence of his being unfit for active duty at this time, he has been relieved from the command of these two regiments, and directed to report to the Adjutant-General for orders. He was not ordered to take command of that part of his former brigade in North Carolina, because it was thought possible some other disposition had been made of it since his removal from that department. I think it very important to establish a camp at some point in the rear where our cavalry can be recruited, and I know of no one so well qualified for the post as Brigadier-General Robertson.

R. E. LEE,

General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN VIRGINIA,
Dublin, July 15, 1863.

Honorable JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War, Richmond:

Your telegram of this date received. I have sent with the troops I have forwarded the most reliable officer I have available, and he is perfectly reliable.

I will follow myself as soon as the movements of the enemy are sufficiently developed.

I presume you have received my telegram of a few hours since.

SAM. JONES,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN VIRGINIA,
Dublin, July 15, 1863.

Brigadier General W. PRESTON,

Commanding, &c., Abingdon:

GENERAL: I returned from Monroe County last evening, and found here your letter of the 11th and telegrams of the 11th and 12th instant. I replied by telegraph to your telegrams this morning, and telegraphed General Williams to suspend all further proceedings against Major [C. J.] Prentice.

I remember perfectly well our conversation to which you refer, and our recollections of it do not differ at all.

I have never regarded Major Prentice as under my command. He stopped here, and exhibited to me a letter from the Secretary of War, giving him authority to raise a battalion or regiment in Eastern Kentucky, or on the borders of Virginia and Kentucky, to be at-