battalion Virginia Volunteers are attached to and make part of the

Fifty-ninth Regiment Virginia Volunteers. An elected for field officers of said regiment will be forth with held.

XXVI. The companies composing the battalion under Major G. M. Edgar, in General Echols' command, are detached from the Fifty-ninth Regiment Virginia Volunteers and will be organized into a separate battalion. An election for field officers of said battalion will forthwith be held.

* * *

By command of the Secretary of War:

John WITHERS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[16 and 18.]

HEADQUARTERS FOURTH BRIGADE,
One-half Mile West of Martinsburg, October 21, 1862.

General A. P. HILL,

Commanding Light Division:

GENERAL: I am now in camp cooking rations, and have been ordered by General Jackson to rejoin you as soon as I finish. I do not know your whereabouts. Please send me the necessary information to enable me to join you without delay, and also what disposition I had best make of the wagons. I was told by General Jackson I had better send them to the right after passing the Opequon.

Respectfully,

JAMES. H. LANE,

Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

Whad disposition must we make of our sick? There are some reported by the surgeons as unfit for duty and unable to march. We have sent off all our ambulances (two only) with sick and have no transportation.

[19.]

HEADQUARTERS,
Richmond, October 25, 1862.

Brigadier General H. A. WISE,

Commanding, &c., Chaffin's Bluff:

GENERAL: Colonel Ball has been ordered to report to you in person to-day for instructions. You will move to-morrow morning at daylight or as soon thereafter as possible. My ordnance officer has instructions to procure the arms you ask for provided the Ordnance Department can furnish them. I will send further instructions in regard to the object, &c., of the expedition before the time of your starting.

Respectfully and truly, yours,

G. W. SMITH,

Major-General.

[18.]

SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 251.
Richmond, October 27, 1862.

XII. Colonel J. D. Imboden, First Regiment Virginia Partisan Rangers, is authorized to organize his cavalry into a battalion, commanded by major, and to raise four additional companies of infantry, and by uniting them with his present infantry force to complete a regiment of ten