WILLIAMSBURG, May 10, 1865.

Brigadier-General GORDON:

Your dispatch just received. All the troops I have at this post will receive orders to march to-morrow to Newport, to relieve as many of the colored troops there. I can withdraw the other companies of the same regiment I have stationed in other counties so soon as I can relieve them by others from Richmond.

B. C. LUDLOW,

Brevet Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Memorandum for Major-General Augur.-List of forts and batteries Carroll, Stanton, Baker, Mahan, Lincoln, and Battery Jameson, Forts Totten, Slocum, Stevens, Reno, and Battery Reno, Fort Summer.

South of the Potomac (first class): Battery Rodgers, Forts Lyon, Ellsworth, Worth, Ward, Richardson, McPherson, Whipple, Morton, C. F. Smith, Ethan Allen.

It has been proposed to retain permanently the forts of the first class, as they occupy commanding positions, and if maintained will constitute the skeleton of a line of defense which may be easily built up again when circumstances require. It is difficult to say which of these forts is the most important. They are arranged, therefore, in geographical position.

North of the Potomac (second class): Forts Greble, Meigs, fort on Kennedy's Hill, Forts Chaplin, Bunker Hill, De Russy, Kearny, Simmons and Mansfield (essentially one fort), Battery Cameron.

South of the Potomac (second class): Forts Willard, O'Rorke, Farnsworth, Weed, Barnard, Berry, Albany, Tillinghast, Strong, Marcy. The forts of this class are generally in good order, and would last many years without much expenditure of labor or money. They occupy positions which must be held the city is threatened by a land attack. They are not so important, however, as the forts named in the first class.

North of the Potomac (third class): Forts Snyder, Ricketts, Wagner, Davis, Du Pont, circular fort, Fort Thayer, Battery Morris, Forst Saratoga, Slemmer, Batteries Smead, Russell, Forts Bayard, Gaines, Batteries Vermont, Martin Scott. Chain Brigde Battery, Batteries Kemble and Parrott.

South of the Potomac (third class): Fort Williams, Battery Garesche, Forts Reynolds, Scott, Runyon, Jackson, Craig, Cass, Woodbury, Corcoran, Bennett, Haggerty, two block-houses and battery in Hunting Creek Valley, one block-house on Leesburg turnpike, three block-houses on Aqueduct Bridge. This class embraces the works of least importance and should be first abandoned.

B. S. ALEXANDER,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Aide-de-Camp, Chief Engineer of Defenses.

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 10, 1865.

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. FIRST DIV., NINTH ARMY CORPS, No. 21.
Washington, D. C., May 10, 1865.

Bvt. Brigadier General N. B. McLaughlen, having reported back for duty, will take command of the First Division camp, headquarters at the