HEADQUARTERS SHIELD'S DIVISION, New Market, May 3, 1862.

(Received 8 p. M.)

Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary:

Your welcome order of the 2nd instant just received.* I will prepare to move with my division at a moment's warning. Could I not have they Maryland cavalry with me?

JAS. SHIELDS,

Major-General, commanding Division.

[12.]

HEADQUARTERS ADVANCE BRIGADE, Near Rectortown, Va., May 3, 1862-3 p. M.

(Received 6.40 p. M. 4th.)

Hon. E. M. STANTON:

Your dispatch of yesterday relative to forwarding dispatches to General Banks and others was received at 3 p. M. to-day. I have already forwarded the dispatches and made arrangements as meet the requirements of your order. I have no change in the affairs of the road to report. Guerrillas continue to hang around us. I have not been advised of any troops to occupy the posts at Salem, Rectortown, and Piedmont. I consider it very important that they be sent forward without delay, that I may take charge of the western portion of the road, which is hourly threatened by considerable numbers of guerrilla cavalry, who might in one hour make the road useless for several days.

Very respectfully,
JOHN W. GEARY,

Colonel Twenty-eighth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers.

[12.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, Camp Scott, May 4, 1862.

Hon. G. V. FOX,
Fort Monroe:

If it appears that West Point is not strongly held I would suggest pushing the Galena and some gun-boats up the James River.

G. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General.

[11.]

HEADQUARTERS, Fort Monroe, May 4, 1862.

Major-General McCLELLAN,
Yortkown:

Brigadier-General Mansfield reports that there men from a steamer he burned this morning, loaded with coal for Norfolk, inform him that the rebels have removed the heavy guns from Mulbery Island and from Jamestown, and are abandoning those points. It would seem that the bird has flown.

JOHN E. WOOL,

Major-General.

[11.]

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*See VOL. XII, Part III, p.125.

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