HEADQUARTERS FIRST ARMY CORPS,
March 29, 1865.

Major-General MAHONE,

Commanding, &c.:

Can you make arrangements to prevent a surprise by an expedition in pontoon-boats landing at night between Battery Dantzler and Wood? Could you line the edge of the river at low water between these points with palisades or abatis?

J. LONGSTREET,

Lieutenant-General.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST ARMY CORPS,
March 29, 1865.

Brigadier General M. W. GARY,

Commanding, &c.:

Hunton's brigade has been ordered off. You will have guards placed along the line of works they occupied to prevent passage. I hear of carts passing through between the Williamsburg road and Nine-Mile road. Please try and stop this leak.

O. LATROBE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
March 29, 1865. (Received 30th.)

Lieutenant General J. A. EARLY:

I desire you to turn over the command in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee to Brigadier General John Echols, and of the Valley District to Major-General Lomax. I will address you a letter to your house in Franklin County, to which you can return, and await further orders.

R. E. LEE,

General.

RICHMOND, VA., March 30, 1865.

His Excellency WILLIAM SMITH,

Governor of Virginia:

Upon the receipt of your letter of the 27th instant, I had a conference with the Secretary of War and Adjutant-General, in relation to your suggestions are to the published order for the organization of negro troops, and I hope that the modifications which have been made will remove the objections which you pointed out. It was never my intention to collect the negroes in depots for the purposes of instruction, but only as the best mode of forwarding them, either as individuals or as companies, to the commands with which they were to serve. The officers at the different posts will aid in providing them to depots where transportation will be available to aid them in reaching the fields of service for which they are destined. The aid of gentlemen who are willing and able to rase this character of troops will be freely accepted. The appointment of commanders, for reasons obvious to you, must depend on other consideration than the mere power to recruit.

I am happy to receive your assurance of success, as well as your promise to seek legislation to secure unmistakable freedom to the slave who shall enter the Army, with a right to return to his old home, when he shall have been honorably discharged from military service.