HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES,
Winchester, Va., October 6, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel C. W. TOLLES,

Chief Quartermaster:

COLONEL: Your communications of the 4th and 6th instant were duly received. Three hundred wagons arrived from the front to-day. The train that left this post day before yesterday was passed all safe beyond Woodstock yesterday morning. There was with it a guard of about 1,500. Do not understand me to believe these various reports relative to the capture of teams, &c., are true. I simply wish to impress upon you the idea that to safely guard a train of 200 wagons, from here to the front, a guard of at least 1,500 men are necessary. I will send to Martinsburg to-morrow the train of 272 wagons that arrive to-day with supplies, stores, &c., for this post; and the train of 300 that came from the front I will load up and send back there on Monday, in accordance with your directions. The mules of that train are very much exhausted, and in need of rest. The balance of the train that arrives from Martinsburg to-day I will dispatch for the front to-morrow at daylight, under what I consider a sufficient escort-Colonel Currie's brigade was and the troops that accompany it from Martinsburg, together with between 200 and 300 cavalry from this post.

Very respectfully,

O. EDWARDS,

Colonel, Commanding Post.

HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES,
Winchester, Va., October 6, 1864.

Brigadier-General STEVENSON,

Commanding Military District of Harper's Ferry:

GENERAL: Your communication of the 5th instant came to hand this p.m. I will at once obtain from Doctor Blaney, medical director, the information you desire, and forward it at the earliest practicable moment. The train that left here the day before yesterday was reported all safe beyond Woodstock on the following day. It had with it a guard of 1,500 men. All trains thus far have arrived in safety, as far as heard from. Do not understand [me] as believing all the rumors that are afloat relative to the capture of trains; I simply wish to be understood as believing that at least 1,500 men are necessary to properly protect a train of 200 wagons going from here to the front. I will dispatch Colonel Currie, who arrived to-day, at daylight to-morrow, the train from the front that left the day before yesterday having come through in safety. An enlisted man of the Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, who was wounded in a skirmish with a guerrilla party of the enemy the other day and taken to Paris, escaped and returned to his command this morning. He reports that he was informed by Union citizens in that neighborhood that Mosby was collecting some 500 men in that vicinity, and preparing to make what they called a thirty-days' raid in the direction of Alexandria, and that he (the man of the Seventeenth) saw a part of this at its rendezvous in that neighborhood. I have added to the troops under Colonel Currie's command about 300 cavalry that were at this post.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

O. EDWARDS,

Colonel, Commanding Post.