Ordnance and ammunition in abundance have been either furnished already or promised them by the Government, and it only requires that a proper officer should be assigned to take command of operations and organize at once a system of discipline and defense. Such an officer your petitioners, in view of the importance of the interests to be either lost or defended, earnestly ask Your Excellency to assign to the defense of that peninsula, and in view of the difficulty of communication and the danger of delay we ask Your Excellency's attention at once to our petition and an early reply. Beyond this, and besides the volunteer officers which the peninsula would itself be able to furnish, there would be needed a captain of artillery for a light battery already on the Eastern Shore, and for instructor in the use of heavy pieces to be mounted in battery at assailable points, and an engineer officer for the erection of the necessary works of defense, &c Both of these your petitioners are happy to believe they are able to designate to Your Excellency; both natives of the Eastern Shore itself, and anxious to aid in its defense; both of unquestionable qualifications, and neither now in the service, though both anxious to enter it. The names of these gentlemen, with the evidences of their fitness will be presented to Your Excellency at once, provided Your Excellency will appoint to the general command such an officer as could organize our defnse, without whom, indeed, neither of these gentlemen would accept this service, and our own unaided resistance would be utterly in vain.

Hoping that Your Excelency will, in view of the importance of this matter and the difficulty of intercommunication, permit us to receive your answer here and at the earliest day, we remain, Your Excellency's obedient servants,

R. B. WINDER,

Captain and Assistant Quartermaster of Thirty-ninth Virginia Regiment

JOHN R. READ,

Z. L. C. WILLIS,

Second Lieutenants, Thirty-ninth Virginia Regiment.

[4.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 255.
Richmond, Va., August 19, 1861.

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V. The Vicksburg Confederates, Captain R. C. Green, from Mississippi, as soon as they have received their arms and are equipped for the field will proceed to Manassas and join the Mississippi battalion under Lieutenant Colonel W. L. Brandon.

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By order:

GEO. DEAS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

[5.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 129.
August 20, 1861.

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XVIII. Brigadier-General Holmes, commanding the Fredericksburg District, will order Colonel Semmes' Second Georgia Regiment to proceed to Manassas, Va., and join the brigade of General Toombs, of which it forms a part.