years ago, and the appointments since that time have been made only for vacancies on the special request of commanders-in-chief. There is now on vacancy, and has not been since the President re-instated General Blair; but General Crook can be appointed now a rank, and when a vacancy occurs he can receive a full appointment, which no man in the service has more fairly won. His appointment by brevet will be forwarded you to-morrow.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON, July 17, 1864-12 noon.

Major-General HUNTER,

Harper's Ferry, W. Va.:

General Grant has directed General Wright, as soon as he assures himself of the retreat of the enemy toward Richmond, to return to Washington with the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps. He also directs that, wit the troops belonging to your commands, you pursue the enemy cautiously, event o Gordonsville and Charlottesville, if you can. He further directs that "if compelled to fall back you will retreat in front of the enemy toward the main crossings of the Potomac, so as to cover Washington, and not be squeezed out to one side, so as to make it necessary to fall back into West Virginia to save your arm. " If Hunter cannot get to Gordonsville and Charlottesville to cut the railroads he should make all the valleys south of the Baltimore and Ohio road a desert as high up as possible. I do not mean that houses should be burned, but every particle of provisions and stock should be removed, and the people notified to move out. " He further says "that he wants your troops to eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them. "

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General, and Chief of Staff.

WASHINGTON, December 6, 1864.

[Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT:]

DEAR GENERAL: I inclose you one of the telegrams* received from General Halleck on the 17th of July, referred to in my last note. You can very readily imagine that the reception of such a dispatch, after I had been working hard, night and day, for two months, would have a very depressing tendency. When I relieved Sigel I found his command very much disorganized and demoralized, from his recent defeat at New Market, and the three generals with it, Sigel, Stahel, and Sullivan, not worth one cent; in fact, very much in my way. I supposed, however, that you were busily engaged with Lee, and that it was important that I should try and create a diversion in your taken it, if it had not been for the stupidity and conceit of that fellow Averell, who unfortunately joined me at Staunton, and of whom I unfortunately had at the time a very high opinion, and trusted him when I should not have done so.

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*See Halleck to Hunter, July 17, 1864, 12 noon, ante.

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