MAY 27, 1861.

Lieutenant General WINFIELD SCOTT:

Two bridges burned last night near Farmington, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Have ordered First Regiment Virginia and one regiment Ohio to move at once by rail from Wheeling on Fairmont, occupying bridges as they go. Two Ohio regiments ordered to occupy Parkersburg and move towards Grafton; one regiment at Gallipolis.

GEO. B. MCCLELLAN,

Major-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEP'T, ADJT. General 'S OFFICE,

Numbers 26.
Washington, May 27, 1861.

All that part of Virginia east of the Alleghany Mountains and north of James River, except Fort Monroe and sixty miles around the same, will for the present constitute a new military geographical department, under the command of Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, U. S. A., whose headquarters will be movable according to circumstances.

By order:

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. DEPARTMENT NORTHEASTERN VIRGINIA,
Arlington, May 29, 1861.

Lieutenant Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND,

Asst. Adjt. General, Hdqrs. of the Army, Washington, D. C.:

COLONEL: I arrived here too late in the afternoon of the 27th to assume on that day formally, in orders, the command of the department, but I reported to Major-General Sandford at this place, and received from him such information as to the state of affairs as he was able then to give me. I encamped the night of the 27th with the New Jersey brigade, and early on the morning of the 28th went to Alexandria, and was occupied from 5 a. m. till 9 o'clock at night in examining the position occupied by the troops and looking into the condition of the men.

Defensive works under construction.-The works at Alexandria had not been commenced nor even laid out a late as 10 o'clock a. m. yesterday, nor had the plans been definitely determined upon. A want of tools in the first place, and in the second place of means of transportation for the men from the wharf in Alexandria to the hill to be fortified, and changes made necessary by a better knowledge of the ground, were the principal causes given for the delay. Both the Michigan regiment and the New York Zouaves were bivouacked and encamped on the site, leaving but a few men in town. I trust, therefore, that the Navy Department may be requested to [retain] the Pawnee at her present station. The works at the bridge-head of the Long Bridge were progressing finely, and the report to me was that the men were working diligently. The main work covering the Aqueduct and ferry opposite Georgetown was in a fair state. The Sixty-ninth New York is the only regiment at work on it, and they seemed to me to be working admirably.

Subsistence and means of transportation.-Subsistence is furnished to the troops away from the vicinity of Alexandria by returns on the main depot in Washington. This, and the utter absence of any wagons on