HEADQUARTERS, Winchester, July 18, 1861.
General S. COOPER:
GENERAL: I have had the honor to receive your telegram of yesterday. General Patterson, who had been at Bunker Hill since Monday, seems to have moved yesterday to Charlestown, twenty-three miles to the east of Winchester.
Unless he prevents it, we shall move toward General Beauregard to-day. I am compelled to leave the sick and most of the baggage for want of means of transportation. There are wagons enough to carry but four days’ provisions, but the urgency of the case seems to me to justify a risk of hunger. I am delayed by provision for the care of the sick.
I leave General Carson here with two brigades of Virginia militia, with orders to fall back if the enemy should approach in force.
Respectfully, &c.,
J. E. JOHNSTON.
Sources
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Vol. II. With additions and corrections. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902.
Spirit of '61 