WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, October 6, 1864.

Brigadier General WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Commanding at Martinsburg, Va.:

GENERAL: The pressure of other engagements has prevented me from giving you specific instructions in regard to your duties at your present post, and I now proceed to do so:

First. The Adjutant-General informs me that you have already reported that you have assumed command. I presume you have also advised Major-General Sheridan, commander of the division, and Major-General Crook, commander of the department, of your arrival at Martinsburg, under orders from the War Department. If it has not already been done, you will please to give them notice that you have assumed command, pursuant to your orders.

Second. Your most important duty, in the absence of other instructions from General Sheridan, will be to take charge of the depots of military stores at Martinsburg, and see that they are under proper protection and administration. If anything be needed for the security of the public property in your charge, you will report the same to General Stevenson.

Third. The Department is not advised what military force is in your command, and therefore can not give specific instructions as to the mode of its employment; but will suggest that after providing suitable guards any surplus force that you may have should be used in routing out and destroying any gangs of guerrillas that may infest your vicinity. It may be possible that after you have become sufficiently acquainted with the personnel of your command, you can organize a small but efficient corps that may accomplish much in destroying the robbers and murderers that make it a business to plunder our trains and transportation and kill our soldiers in ambush. If you can do so, you are at liberty to employ any means that may be within your power to accomplish that object, and when persons guilty of such transactions come within your power, you may deal with them as their crimes merit, without making any report upon the subject.

fourth. The protection of the railway and of the telegraph lines will merit your special attention.

Fifth. Upon any point upon which you are not sufficiently advised, you will apply for instructions to General Stevenson, your immediate superior.

Your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS POST OF MARTINSBURG, VA.,
October 6, 1864.

Brigadier-General STEVENSON,

Commanding Military District of Harper's Ferry:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report that Captain Melvin, of General Sheridan's staff, has just reached here with the body of Lieutenant Meigs (of the same staff), who was killed on Monday while making military surveys. Captain Melvin left the front at 10 a.m. yesterday, and reports General Sheridan still at Harrisonburg; also that all the important bridges between that place and Winchester were

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