If you cannot cut off from his
column large slices, the general desires that you will not fail to take
small ones. Let your watchword be Fight, and let all your orders be
Fight, Fight, FIGHT; bearing in mind that time is as valuable to the
general as the rebel carcasses. It is not in the power of the rebels to
oppose you with more than five thousand sabres, and those badly mounted,
and, after they leave Culpeper, without forage and rations. Keep them
from Richmond, and sooner or later they must fall into our hands.
The general desires you to understand that he considers the primary
object of your movement the cutting of the enemy's communication with
Richmond by the Fredericksburg route, checking his retreat over those
lines; and he wishes to make every thing subservient to that object.
He desires that you will keep yourself informed of the enemy's
whereabouts, and attack him wherever you find him.
If, in your operations, an opportunity should present itself for you to
detach a force to Charlottesville, which is almost unguarded, and
destroy depots of supplies said to be there, or along the line of the
Aquia Railroad, in the direction of Richmond, to destroy bridges, etc.
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