more. He must coal and fill up with ammunition and provisions is the reason I ask you to write to him. I wrote him that your force would leave to-day, but if it is not so he should know it.

G. V. FOX,

Assistant Secretary of Navy.

WASHINGTON, January 2, 1865-12.30 p. m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT,

City Point, Va.:

A pretended deserter reports that Lee has constructed a dam on the James River, by means of which he expects to inundate a part of your works. I did not see him, so as to learn any of the particulars of his story.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.

CITY POINT, VA., January 2, 1865.

Colonel M. R. MORGAN,

Commissary of Subsistence, Fort Monroe:

Report by telegraph the moment the vessels will be provisioned.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

FORT MONROE, January 2, 1865-8 p. m.

Brigadier-General RAWLINS,

Chief of Staff, City Point:

All the vessels have not yet arrived. Those now here have been all provisioned.

M. R. MORGAN,

Lieutenant-Colonel.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Numbers 2.
City Point, Va., January 2, 1865.

1. Eight thousand infantry and two batteries of artillery, without horses, will be got in immediate readiness to embark on transports, with orders to report to Major General W. T. Sherman, at Savannah, Ga.

2. They will be provided with four days' cooked rations in haversacks.

3. The troops and artillery of the late expedition against Wilmington, having experience in embarking and debarking, will be selected; and to make up the balance of the 8,000, good and tried soldiers of the Second Brigade, First Division, Twenty-fourth Army Corps, will be taken.

4. Bvt. Major General A. H. Terry, U. S. Volunteers, is assigned to the command of these forces.

5. Every practicable precaution will be observed to prevent information of any movement of troops getting to the enemy.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

T. S. BOWERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.