Edwin M. Stanton to Benjamin F. Kelley, June 9, 1863

Brigadier-General KELLEY, Harper’s [Ferry]:

You will proceed at once to mass your troops in more convenient places for rapid and concerted operations, holding railroad bridges only with small detachments in block-houses.

DONN PIATT, Lneutenant-Colonel, and Chief of Staff.

44 N. 0., V. A. W. V. A. M. D., P. A., ETC. (Cuar. XXXIX.

JUNE 9, 1863. Major-General HOOKER, Commanding Army of the Potomac:

I shall move up the Peninsula from Willjamsburg and on the Blackwater from Suffolk on Thursday [June 11]. My forces are not large, and on the Peninsula the enemy has appeared in some strength within two days, so that I do not know how far I can go in that

direction. JOHN A. DIX, Major-General. ORDER. Wark DEPARTMENT, Washington City, June 9, 1863. * * * * * * *

I. I. A Departmental Army Corps of volunteers—infantry, artillery, and cavalry—to be designated the Army Corps of the Monongahela, will be enrolled and organized in accordance with regulations of the United States service, for the protection and defense of the public property within that department,.and will be mustered into the service of the United States, to serve during the pleasure of the President or the continuance of the war. :

The company and field officers of the Departmental Corps will be provisionally commissioned bythe President. They will be armed, uniformed, equipped, and, while in active service, subsisted and supplied as other troops of the United States.

Cavalry volunteers may furnish their own horses, to be turned over to the United States at their appraised value, or allowance will be made for the time of actual service at the rate authorized by law.

The Government will mount picked cavalry to the extent that horses can be furnished.

The Departmental Corps will not be entitled to bounty, and cannot be paid until Congress makes an appropriation for that purpose.

III. Volunteers in the Departmental Corps may, at their own request, be transferred and mustered into the service for three years or during the war, and, upon such transfer and muster, they will be allowed the pay and bounty authorized by the act of Congress to volunteers for three years or during the war.

Volunteers in the Departmental Corps will remain subject to enrollment and draft for general service. The enlistment, recruiting, and organizing of volunteers for three years or during the war, is to -be stimulated and encouraged, the officers to be appointed and commissioned by the Governors of. the respective States.

The enlistments herein specified and transfers from the departmental service to the three years’ service must be reported to the Provost-Marshal-General, in order that the respective States and congressional districts may receive appropriate credit under thé enrollment act of Congress.

I. V. All the troops within the department will be under the command of the general commanding the department, with the usual departmental staff.

V. I. The operations against the enemy are not to be limited by the geographical lines of the department, but may extend to adjacent territory, as in the judgment of the commanding general may be expedient to resist or pursue the enemy.

Volunteer companies and regiments organized in places not within the Department of the Monongahela may be attached for temporary service to the Army Corps of the Monongahela, and mustered into service upon special application and order of the War Department.

By order of the President :