Jefferson Davis to Markell, March 4, 1863
Major MARKELL, Commanding Pickets :
Masor: I neglected to inform you that the Twelfth Illinois having been ordered away from Dumfries, you will patrol the Telegraph road to the same extent that it was patroled by that regiment.
You will also send in a full report of the attack on your pickets and forage party, especially in reference to the attack on Company M. The report will show what disposition was made by the officer in charge to prevent a surprise, and the character of his defense. The attack must have been made by a small party, and it should have been defeated.
If the conduct of the officer was not perfectly satisfactory, you will send him in arrest to these headquarters, with a full statement of the particulars.
You will be relieved by the Third Indiana to-day or to-morrow. The picket-line will be drawn in some 5 or6 miles. The colonel desires that you reconnoiter a new line at about that distance from the old, so that when the officer arrives he can post his pickets without delay; you will then withdraw yours and return to camp.
By order of Colonel Davis, commanding brigade:
Assistant Adjutant-General.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE Potomac,
March 4, 1863.
Your dispatch of March 1, from Dumfries, to H. C. Rodgers, speaking
of a force at Warrenton, &c., by some accident was mislaid, and I did
not see it until this a.m. Colonel Wyndham, with 2,000 cavalry, was