ORDERS.] HEADQUARTERS SIXTH CORPS,

Poolesville, Md., July 15, 1864.

Chief quartermasters of corps and independent commands will at once obtain forage through the country to the extent of their transportation, giving receipts according to Form Numbers 25. In the movement about to take place it is expected that the command will be obliged to subsist upon the country, and it is enjoined upon all quartermasters to take measures to have this accomplished in a thorough and systematic manner, and in accordance with the orders from the War Department.

By command of Major-General Wright:

CHAS. A. WHITTIER,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

ORDERS.] HEADQUARTERS SIXTH CORPS,

July 15, 1864.

Brigadier-General Russell, commanding First Division, will detail two regiments with one rifled battery to report to Colonel Lowell, commanding cavalry, at Edwards Ferry. These regiments must be held in readiness to move; the time of starting must be sent to the division commander. Colonel Tompkins will direct one rifled battery to report at once to Brigadier-General Russell.

By command of Major-General Wright:

CHAS. A. WHITTIER,

Major and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA,
Harper's Ferry, W. Va., July 15, 1864.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to express to you my sincere regret that His Excellency the President should have seen fit, in a telegram from General Halleck of yesterday's date, to have so far censured my conduct as to place before me the alternatives, either of turning over my command of troops in the field to one of my brigadiers, or volunteering to serve under a junior of my own rank; the difficulties in the latter alternative being increased by the too obvious inference from General Halleck's words, that my abandoning my command to the subordinate in question would be preferred. I am further censured by the President, through General Halleck, for not having made sufficiently frequent reports to Washington of the condition of affairs in my department. To this my reply is, that I reported without delay every event which seemed to me of sufficient importance to merit the attention of the President and General-in-Chief; and that if any events of importance have transpired within my department of which, from the nature of the case, the War Department must not have been advised earlier and more reliably than myself, such events have not yet reached my ears.