Unknown to Ambrose E, Burnside, November 14, 1862

Maj. Gen. AMBROSE E, BURNSIDE, Commanding Army of the Potomac : The President has just assented to your plan. He thinks it will succeed if you move rapidly; otherwise not. * * * H. W. HALLECK,

This dispatch was received at my headquarters, at Warrenton, at 11 o’clock on the morning of the 14th, and I at once issued orders for the different commands to move in accordance with the above-mentioned plan. The remark in this dispatch, indicating the great necessity for the speedy movement of the troops, was entirely in accordance with my own views, as the season was so far advanced that I looked for but little time in which to move the army effectively.

General Sumner’s grand division started at daylight on the morning of the 15th, and the grand divisions of Generals Franklin and Hooker, together with the cavalry, started on the 16th.

General Sumner’s advance reached Falmouth on the 17th.* General Franklin concentrated his command at Stafford Court-House, and General Hooker his in the vicinity of Hartwood. The cavalry was in the rear, and covering the fords of the Rappahannock. The plan submitted by me on November 9 (see Appendix B) will explain fully the reasons for these movements. It contemplated, however, the prompt starting of pontoons from Washington. I supposed this would be attended to; but, feeling anxions to know something definite in regard to them before telegraphic communication with Washington should be interrupted, I directed Lieutenant Comstock, my chief engineer, on the morning of the 14th, to ask General Woodbury, by telegraph, if the pontoons were ready to move. Not receiving an immediate reply, I directed him to telegraph to General Woodbury a second time, urging him to forward the trains eee dd

o this second dispatch he received the followin morning of the 15th: SiOOA Ms Soahe

WASHINGT mcr Lieutenant ComMsTocK : ON DOs Nendnbrl Steen

_T have received your two telegrams to-day. Captain Spaulding ha i pura pontoons have arrived. Forty more are Se in the crate Cagis f paulding received Captain Duane’s order of the 6th on the afternoon of the 12th (ne pontoon train can be got ready to start on Sunday or Monday morning Novemer 16 or 17, depending somewhat upon the Quartermaster’s Department. if General

Halleck is not inclined to send another train by land, but will allow it, probably, if Genera] Burnside insists. A second train can be sent by water to Aquia Creek, and from thence transported by the teams which carry the first. D. P. WOODBURY, Brigadier-General.

_ This was my first information of delay; but the statement that thirtysix pontoons had arrived, and forty more were expected next morning, connected with the statement that the first train (which would have been ample for our purposes) would start on the 16th or 17th, was deemed sufficient to authorize me in continuing the movement of the troops, as the pontoons would have arrived in very good time had they started as promised, although not so soon as I had expected.

After telegraphic communication between my headquarters and Washington was broken, General Woodbury sent me the following dispatches, which reached me by orderlies, after my arrival at Falmouth :