HDQRS. MIDDLE DEPARTMENT EIGHTH ARMY CORPS,
Baltimore, Md., October 10, 1864-6.30 p.m.

Brigadier General E. B. TYLER,

Relay House, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad:

General Halleck's orders were to send the cavalry and artillery down the Mechanicsville pike to Rockville to cover the Washington Branch. I have reported Knight's movements to General Halleck. Your orders to Knight to return to Rockville from Clarksburg should be carried out.

SAML. B. LAWRENCE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[OCTOBER 11, 1864.-For Grant to Stanton, and reply of latter, relative to Changing the commands of Generals Sheridan, Meade, Hancock, and others, see Vol. XLI, Part III, pp. 773, 774.]

CITY POINT, VA., October 11, 1864-9.30 p.m.

(Received 9.30 a.m. 12th.)

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Washington, D. C.:

After sending the Sixth Corps and one division of cavalry here, I think Sheridan should keep up as advanced a position as possible toward the Virginia Central road, and be prepared with supplies to advance on to that road at Gordonsville and Charlottesville at any time the enemy weakens himself sufficiently to admit of it. The cutting of that road and the canal would be of vast importance to us.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

CEDAR CREEK, VA., October 11, 1864-7 p.m.

(Received 12th.)

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

I have seen no signs of the enemy since the brilliant engagement of the 9th instant. It was a square cavalry fight, in which the enemy was routed beyond my power to describe. He lost everything carried on wheels except one piece artillery, and when last seen it was passing over Rude's Hill, near New Market, on the keen run, twenty-six miles from the battle-field, to which point the pursuit was kept up. The baterymen and horses, &c., were captured. The horses were all in good condition, but were all exchanged by our own cavalrymen for their broken-down animals. I have given you but a faint idea of the cleaning out of the stock, forage, wheat, provisions, &c., in the Valley. The casualties of the 9th will not exceed sixty men. The 100 men of the Eighth Ohio, dispersed while guarding the bridge over the North Shenandoah, have come in, except the officers. Lieutenant-Colonel Tolles, my chief quartermaster, and Asst. Surg. Emil Ohlenschlager, medical inspector on my staff, were both mortally wounded by guerrillas to-day, on their way to join me from Winchester; they were ambuscaded. Three men were killed and five wounded out of an escort of twenty-four. The refugees from Early's army, cavalry and infantry, are organizing guerrilla parties, and are becoming very formidable and