bridge is of some importance, as the ford is difficult. Four men of the Eighty-second Pennsylvania Volunteers were taken yesterday by the First Maryland Cavalry near my lines.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

O. EDWARDS,

Colonel, Commanding Post.

Brigadier-General NEILL,

Commanding Post at Martinsburg.

HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES,
Winchester, Va., October 25, 1864.

COLONEL: I have the honor to report that at about 9 a. m. the escort that came from Martinsburg last evening with General Neill left this post to return. This escort consisted of fifty men, thirty of whom were from the Twenty-second Pennsylvania Cavalry, under command of Second Lieutenant B. F. Hasson, Twenty-second Cavalry. General A. N. Duffie, with his two-horse light paring wagon, and Captain Roome, assistant adjutant-general, Second Brigade, First Division, Sixth Corps, who was here wounded, with the headquarter light wagon of that brigade, accompanied it on its return. When about five miles from this place General Duffie, with the men from the escort, with his light wagon, pushed ahead, and when about one mile and a half beyond the main body was attacked by a party from Mosby's or Gilmor's band of guerrillas and captured. The wagon was run off to the side of the road and is supposed to have been taken away. A courier from the escort brought in the news of the disaster, and the other right wagon returned. i immediately sent out the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and the Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry to hunt up the enemy. The commanding officer of the Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, having ascertained that the party went off toward Snicker's Ferry, immediately put off in that direction and has not, as yet, returned. The enemy's force is supposed to have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 men. Major Durland, commanding Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, has since returned and reports that he followed this force by a circuitous route as far as Seivers' Ford, on the Opequon, and that they received reliable information from citizens along the route that General Duffie's spring wagon, with himself and one other officer inside, had passed the vicinity of Brucetown. I will await further orders as when to forward the next.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

O. EDWARDS,

Colonel, Commanding.

Lieutenant Colonel JAMES W. FORSYTH,

Chief of Staff, Middle Military Division.

HDQRS. THIRD BRIGADIER, FIRST DIV., SIXTH ARMY CORPS,
October 27, 1864.

MAJOR: In obedience to Special Orders, No. 56, from headquarters Middle Military District, of October 15, 1864, I have the honor to forward the following report of the operations of my command since the organization of the army up to the 10th instant:

On the 9th of August my brigade, with the rest of the corps, commenced the movement up the Valley. On the 12th the brigade was