HEADQUARTERS C. S. FORCES, Mount Jackson, February 2, 1864.

Major General J. A. EARLY:

GENERAL: The foregoing [following] dispatch is from a gentleman well known to me, and of the highest respectability. I inclose you three dispatches* from my outposts yesterday and last night. These convey all the reliable information I have.

Yours, respectfully,
J. D. IMBODEN,

Brigadier-General.

FEBRUARY 1, 1864.

Brigadier-General IMBODEN:

GENERAL: You may have the information ere this reaches you, but I find that 3,500 (an estimate made on the spot) Yankees (mounted), with four pieces of artillery, passed through Winchester last night in the direction of Romney. They may have taken the Moorefield grade. The estimate formed by persons in Winchester of the train varied; some say that at least 100 in all passed. Excuse haste and a bad pen. I had the pleasure of having you with me a few moments once, during the high waters in July last.

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HEADQUARTERS, February 2, 1864.

General SAMUEL JONES,
Commanding, &c.:

I have received your dispatch of the 31st ultimo, reporting indications of another advance of the enemy from the Kanawha, and your opinion that there should be some troops on the railroad. I have no troops to send. The facts had better be reported to the Secretary of War, as your detachment is beyond the limits of my command. General Averell, by the last reports of scouts in the valley, was at Martinsburg, with his success appears to me at this distance to be owing to the terror with which he has inspired the troops. As soon as his approach is announced his progress is neither retarded nor watched.

A body of select troops should remain constantly in his front, obstructing his advance and reporting his route, that troops might be concentrated at the desired point. I know the difficulty of guarding a long line. You cannot have sufficient force at every vulnerable point, whereas the enemy can select whatever point he pleases. But I think the main passes through the mountains could be so fortified as to be led by a small force, and the minor ones so obstructed as to greatly embarrass their passage. If the home guards or local organizations could be got to hold the fortified passes, it would leave all your make your arrangements such as to enable you to attack them at some vulnerable point and throw them on the defensive it would lighten your labor exceedingly.

I have sent Captain Howard, of the engineers of this army, to examine the routes through to Allegheny range south of Statunton.

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*Not found as inclosures; but see two dispatches from Davis to

Imbodne, p. 1139.

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