WAR DEPARTMENT,

May 7, 1862.

Major General L. McDOWELL,

Falmounth, Va.:

I am directed by the Secretary of War, who is at Fort Monroe, to tell you to get your forces well in hand for movement and to push your bridges to completion as rapidly as possible. It is not yet perfectly clear what will be the next movement of the forces lately in Yorktown.

P. H. WATSON,

Assistant Secretary of War.

FALMOUTH, May 7, 1862.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR:

Your dispatch to get my force in hand ready for movement and to push my bridges to completion is received. The latter I am doing to enable me to do the former. Please give such orders to General Banks as will liberate General Shields. By the latter's telegram he is waiting for certain movements of the former before he takes up his line of march to join me.

IRVIN McDOWELL,

Major-General, Commanding Department.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

May 7, 1862.

Major General JAMES SHIELDS,

New Market, Va.:

General McDowell has been instructed by telegraph to get his forces well in hand for movement, as it is not known with certainty what the next movement of the enemy's forces lately at Yorktown will be. The Secretary of War is at Fort Monroe.

P. H. WATSON,

Assistant Secretary of War.

FALMOUNTH, May 7, 1862-11 p.m.

Major-General SHIELDS,

Commanding Division, Woodstock:

I have just received orders from the Secretary of War to get my forces in hand ready for a movement. Please, therefore, urge forward your division to join me as soon as possible.

IRVIN McDOWELL,

Major-General, Commanding Department.

HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK,
Opposite Fredericksburg, May [7], 1862.

Brigadier General JAMES S. WADSWORTH,

Military Governor District of Columbia, Washington, D. C.:

I received last night a telegram from the War Department to get my forces well in hand push the rebuilding of the bridges, to be ready for