officer has instructions to report to the Governor of Maryland for orders in the case. The general respectfully requests that you will authorize the Governor to place the regiment on its original footing.

D. D. PERKINS,

Major, Chief of Staff.

SMITHFIELD, VA.,

June 3, 1862, via Harper's Ferry.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

One of my cavalry companies sent out to Winchester at daybreak this morning reports that there were no Confederate troops in that place, but that some Federal cavalry had passed through the place. The company sent must now be in Winchester. A staff officer of General Banks arrived to-day. General Banks' advance guard is at Martinsburg.

F. SIGEL,

Major-General, Commanding.

WASHINGTON, June 3, 1862.

Major-General SIGEL, Winchester:

GENERAL: Your telegraphic reports have been received, and the Department is much gratified by the promptness of your movement. Please state the present condition of your force, and whether you have yet formed a junction with General Banks.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

FRONT ROYAL, June 4, 1862 - 12.10 a. m.

(Received 9.30 a. m.)

His Excellency the PRESIDENT:

Your telegram just received. My long dispatch to the Secretary answers it fully, except as to the position at this time of Jackson's army, which I can only infer, as I have nothing on that point from either General Fremont or General Shields. Since Fremont has been in Woodstock, Jackson has had time to be south of Mount Jackson, with macadamized turnpike. Shields is at Luray; his advance at the Shenandoah, on the road to New Market, with an indifferent road, which the constant rains are making bad, and with the Shenandoah impassable and rising.

IRVIN MCDOWELL,

Major-General.

WASHINGTON, June 4, 1862.

Major-General MCDOWELL:

The telegraph operator at Fredericksburg reports that all the bridges at that point are carried away by the freshest.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.