Summary:
Union General Franz Sigel writes General Julius Stahel regarding plans for an
April, 1864, advance. Sigel plans to take Staunton, where he will await
reinforcements.
Maj.-Gen. STAHEL:
MARTINSBURG,
April 26, 1864
Your dispatch received. Col. Wilkinson is supposed to be at Clarksburg. He is ordered to relieve the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania by the Sixth Virginia Regt. and the Second Maryland. Brig.-Gen. Crook will probably not be ready for three or four days on account of the delay of our troops at Parkersburg. Has the Twenty-first New York advanced from Beverly, and has the Tenth Virginia Infantry fallen back to Beverly? Will Brig.-Gen. Sullivan be here soon? I have depended on the arrangements with the Sixth Virginia Cavalry going to Beverly, even if the Fourteenth Pennsylvania should be sent there, because this latter regiment has to join Gen. Crook. It may now be sent to Beverly to re-enforce Col. Harris. All the dismounted men of the Sixth Virginia should be ordered there at once. The mounted men may follow them after we can spare them. I cannot be responsible for any reverse if we cannot re-enforce Col. Harris, of the Tenth Virginia, at once. The troops at Beverly will join us as soon as we have arrived at Staunton and Lewisburg. They are only temporarily detached. Direct Capt. Barringer to send all serviceable army wagons and ambulances which are not absolutely necessary to this place. We can rely only on twenty-five wagons from Hagerstown.
SIGEL,
Maj.-Gen.
Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 33, Serial No. 60, Pages 987-988, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.
