WASHINGTON, May 28, 1862 - 2.30 p. m.

JOHN W. GARRETT, Esq.,

Camden Station, Baltimore:

Your dispatch received.* The information had not been communicated to this Department. Please inform General Dix, and also communicate to me everything you may learn. Call on General Dix for any force he can supply to preserve the communication with Harper's Ferry.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON, May 28, 1862 - 2.30 p. m.

General DIX:

Please use all the force at your command to preserve the railroad communication with Harper's Ferry and to keep you advised.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

CAMDEN STATION, BALTIMORE,

(Received May 28, 1862, 7 p. m.)

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

I have communicated fully with General Dix, as desired. He has ordered to Monocacy, to be forwarded as soon as practicable, six companies of Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania Regiment and four 6-pounders. We are prepared to load them as soon as they can reach station. Mr. Diffey again telegraphs from Harper's Ferry:

Skirmishing since 9 this a. m. General engagement now going on. General Saxton and Colonel Miles on the field. All kinds of rumors afloat. Enemy between Charlestown and Halltown re-enforced.

J. W. GARRETT,

President.

WASHINGTON, May 28, 1862 - 10.35 p. m.

Major-General DIX, Baltimore:

It is all right. The Seventh New York is to remain in Baltimore. I thought perhaps some other New York regiments had reached you,and that they might be required to remain with you under present emergencies.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, D. C., May 28, 1862.

Colonel HAUPT:

SIR: You are hereby appointed chief of construction and transportation in the Department of the Rappahannock, with the rank of colonel, and attacked to the staff of Major-General McDowell.

You are authorized to do whatever you may deem expedient to open for use in the shortest possibly time all military railroads now or

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* See Stanton to McDowell, 2.37 p. m., p. 266.

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