HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE KANAWHA,
Camp Gauley, September 10, 1861.

General A. A. CHAPMAN:

DEAR SIR: The enemy is gathering up his whole strength for an attack upon me at this place, which will not, I am sure, be deferred longer than the 12th or 13th at the farthest. Their force will consist of 5,000 men from Suttonsville, now within one day's march of me, and such forces as he can spare, which I think will be about 2,000 men. To meet this force I have an inadequate number of men. I have therefore determined to call upon you for 800 men. Send them under command of your best colonel, and send them with full supplies for a week at least. Let them come with all possible speed, and send your men [as] thoroughly armed as you can make them. They ought to reach me early Thursday if they push forward, which I am sure you will urge them to do.

I am, very truly, your obedient servant,

JOHN B. FLOYD,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Army of the Kanawha.

[5.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 150.
Richmond, September 11, 1861.

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VII. Captain Penick's company from Pittsvylania County, Va., is attached to Major Montague's battalion of Virginia Volunteers stationed near Williamsburg.

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XVIII. The following troops are assigned to the command of Brigadier-General Magruder, and will proceed with the least practicable delay to Yorktown, Va., and report to him for duty. Transportation will be furnished at once. Should any companies of either regiment be unarmed, they will be left behind until arms can be provided: Colonel T. R. R. Cobb's Georgia Legion, Colonel Howell Cobb's Sixteenth Georgia Volunteers, Colonel B. D. Fry's Thirteenth Regiment Alabama Volunteers, Colonel Sulakowski's Thirteenth Louisiana Volunteers.

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By command of the Secretary of War:

John WITHERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

[4.]

RICHMOND, VA., September 11, 1861.

SECRETARY OF WAR:

DEAR SIR: I suggested to you this morning the propriety of sending by the way of the Northwestern road to Northwestern Virginia a few regiments of volunteers. General Lee, I learn, has commenced his march upon the enemy in Tygart's Valley, in the county of Randolph, and no doubt will drive the enemy from his position. And it seems to me that if a force was sent immediately by the way of Winchester along the Northwestern road the enemy could be certainly captured or driven out of that entire country. The Yankees are scattered in small detachments in various counties in the northwest, and are taking our horses and cattle and quartering their army upon our people.