Alfred Pleasonton to George B. McClellan, December 4, 1862

December 4, 1862.

GENERAL: Your dispatch of this date received. In answer, I beg to inform you that I sent the Eighth New York and Third Indiana Cavalry (the latter six companies strong) to re-enforce Colonel Gregg. This force is from 700 to 800 strong. I have also directed Colonel Gregg to withdraw all parties in any danger of being cut off, and to be vigilant by patrolling the country. I have further directed him, in case the gunboats remove down the river, to draw in his artillery to his main body at the Court-House. Colonel Gregg reported he had received orders from the provost-marshal-general to place guards at certain houses, which, in the colonel’s opinion, would expose them to capture. I told the colonel to do nothing which would risk his men; that the provost-marshal-general’s orders to him in such cases could only be conditional. I have also sent out patrols from my camps here, in the direction of the Court-House and vicinity. The straggling is pretty much stopped. Citizens or somebody else fire at individuals on the roads down the Peninsula nowadays.

Very respectfully,