Today in History:

563 Series I Volume XLVI-III Serial 97 - Appomattox Campaign Part III

Page 563 Chapter LVIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. - UNION.

3. Major-General Willcox, with the remainder of his division and artillery, will take measures to hold the defenses of Petersburg to protect the workmen engaged in repairing the South Side Railroad and guard it as fast as put in running order.

4. The governor of the city will arrest all straggles from other commands and send them in detachments, properly directed, to the front. He will make headquarters at the court-house, and all other headquarters belonging to the forces on duty in the defenses and guarding the railroad and all officers and officers will be located out of the city and contiguous to their commands. The governor of the city will see to the execution of this, and the provost-marshal serving with him will be the provost-marshal of the city.

5. Major-General Benham and Major-General Willcox will report as soon as practicable the disposition of their forces under this order and their composition and number.

By order of Major-General Warren:

E. B. COPE.

Major and Aide-de-Camp.


HDQRS. ENGINEER Brigadier AND DEFENSES OF CITY POINT,
April 4, 1865.

Major E. B. COPE,

Aide-de-Camp, General Warren's Headquarters, Petersburg:

General Orders, Nos. 1 and 2, received at 12.20. The 200 cavalry left at Petersburg with General Willcox, with twenty-five sent with the President to-day and forty to fifty now being sent out with ambulance train to Dinwiddie Court-House, are all that I have under my orders mounted as yet, excepting one company, perhaps fifty men, of First Massachusetts Cavalry, I have just ordered to watch the roads south and east from Bailey's Creek. The balance of this last regiment have been ordered in to return to General Patrick. As soon as possible to get horses I will have more mounted. I have no troops to guard the defenses, except about 300 artillerists, and perhaps 100 engineers, and sixty or eighty engineers here. My Fifteenth Regiment New York Engineers has not yet returned from Petersburg, and I sent about 100 men with bridge raft to Richmond last night. General Patrick's infantry, about 1,500 to 1,800 men are all the other troops here, and they are guarding and escorting prisoners away on steamers.

H. W. BENHAM,

Brigadier-General.


HEADQUARTERS DEFENSES OF PETERSBURG,
April 4, 1865.

Brigadier-General BENHAM:

I have received your dispatch in relation to your command. I thought you had more troops. The engineer regiments I understood the colonel to say were to return to you this morning. I will send some of Colonel Sander's men to relieve Captain Andrews at Cedar Level. Let me know if you are unable to keep up the line of cavalry pickets from King George Court-House to the James.

G. K. WARREN,

Major-General.


Page 563 Chapter LVIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. - UNION.