First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by Major-General I. McDowell.  Second Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brigadier-General E. V. Sumner.  Third Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brigadier-General S. P. Heintzelman.  Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brigadier-General E. D. Keyes.

2.  That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned to the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of their respective corps.

3.  The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in command of Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be military governor of the District of Columbia.

4.  That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as not to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to be underwritten by the Army of the Potomac.

5.  A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Major general N. P. Banks, will be formed from his own and General Shields’s (late General Lander’s) divisions.

Abraham Lincoln.

PRESIDENT’S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.3.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 8,1862

Ordered:  That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a force as in the opinion of the general-in-chief and the commanders of all the army corps shall leave said city entirely secure.

That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army of the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations until the navigation of the Potomac from Washington to the Chesapeake Bay shall be freed from enemy’s batteries and other obstructions, or until the President shall hereafter give express permission.

That any movements as aforesaid en route for a new base of operations which may be ordered by the general-in-chief, and which may be intended to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon the bay as early as the 18th day of March instant, and the general-in-chief shall be responsible that it so move as early as that day.

Ordered, That the army and navy co-operate in an immediate effort to capture the enemy’s batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay.

A. LINCOLN

MEMORANDUM OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND SOME BORDER SLAVE STATE REPRESENTATIVES, BY HON.  J. W. CRISFIELD.

“Dear sir:—­I called, at the request of the President, to ask you to come to the White House tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, and bring such of your colleagues as are in town.”

Washington, March 10, 1862.

Yesterday, on my return from church, I found Mr. Postmaster-General Blair in my room, writing the above note, which he immediately suspended, and verbally communicated the President’s invitation, and stated that the President’s purpose was to have some conversation with the delegations of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, in explanation of his message of the 6th instant.