FORT MONROE, VA., January 13, 1865-7 p.m.

Brigadier-General RAWLINS,

Chief of Staff:

DEAR GENERAL: I am making out, but every tired at such slow work. We have given them all fifteen days' rations and ten days' extra of hard bread; plenty of coal and water. The men of the Ariel and Sedgwick cooked last night three days' pork, had a bath in the James this morning, and were off to sea before 12 o'clock. That Colonel Washburn was tiptop. Brigadier-General Somebody has just left me with his orders. It is a moonlight night, and they should be out before 11 o'clock. This makes 3,406 men, more or less. Grover has not yet arrived. Everybody here does well, commissaries and quartermasters. I hope to go up Sunday. That brigadier alluded to above is in command of the troops on board the Illinois.

Very truly,

M. R. MORGAN.

General Butler is here yet.

JANUARY 13, 1865.

Major General GEORGE G. MEADE,

Commanding Army of the Potomac:

Our men came in last eight from the Chickahominy, where they had met an agent who left Richmond yesterday. He attempted to come out day before yesterday, but was obliged to return on account of the imperative orders which have been issued to allow no one, white or black, to come in or out of the city. The only road that he could leave on yesterday was the Brook turnpike, running northwardly and nearly parallel with the Central railroad; ingress and egress on no other was permitted. Our agent was thus obliged to walk over thirty-five miles, and then cross the Chickahominy in a boat. It would seem that these extraordinary regulations were made for the purpose of preventing information going out of the real condition of the city, which is daily becoming worse. Gold has risen to seventy for one. Flour, according to the grade, is sold at from $600 to $800 a barrel; beef, salt, and all other articles steadily advancing. One of our correspondents, an engineer on the Danville railroad, sends word that on that road eight trains a day have been run each day lately. He says that within the past two weeks transportation has been provided over the road for 16,000 men from General Lee's army. It is understood that it is intended to convey Hoke's division, Kershaw's division, and the brigades lately sent from Early's corps to Wilmington. He sends some facts as to the number of men that could be transported in a train and the number of trains that carried them, in order to show that his information of the number sent south is correct. He adds that there are now forty-five engines on that road, fifteen of which are not in use, that cars and other transportation have been taken from the Petersburg railroad and engines have been withdrawn from the Central and added to the Danville. By the last freshest the Danville and Greensborough Railroad is very badly damaged between these two points. It was a matter of rumor that fifteen days would be required to put the road in repair. The superintendent of another railroad leading out of Richmond, whose name and