[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
December 17, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded, with the request that this report may by placed with my report of the operations of the army during the recent movement across the Rapidan, which was transmitted to the Adjutant-General of the Army, December 7, 1863.

GEO. G. MEADE,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure A.]

HEADQUARTERS, &C., EN ROUTE,
Jacobs' Mill Ford, November 27, 1863-5.30 a. m.

Brigadier-General PRINCE,

Commanding Second Division:

GENERAL: You will move forward at daylight, in the same order as yesterday, keeping well closed up. You will throw out cavalry and infantry pickets upon all cross-roads. You will look well to your right flank, moving with a strong force of flankers well out.

By command of Major-General French:

O. H. HART,

Lieutenant-Colonel, and Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Inclosure B.]

HEADQUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, THIRD CORPS,
November 26, 1863-7.30 p. m.

Lieutenant Colonel O. H. HART,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Third Corps:

COLONEL: I have received an order from you to connect with the Second Corps, afterward an order to connect with the Sixth Corps. It is possible that the manner in which I shall establish my pickets will fulfill these orders, for I shall establish them correctly. At the same time, I do not see that I shall be able to accomplish either of those objects.

In my march here I have kept the left-hand road all the time, and followed the map which was furnished me from your headquarters. In doing so I came upon the cavalry pickets of the enemy, and drove them over an opening of about three-fourths of a mile, my skirmishers wading a deep creek in the middle of it. From this opening the smoke of the enemy's camps on the plank road on my left and front was dense (5 miles off), but I learn from the citizen who lives in this opening that Jones' [Johnson's] division is about 3 miles in my front, and that the road to Robertson's Tavern makes a strong angle to the rear from the point at which I am encamped. I picket that road strongly, and my camp is arranged with reference to an attack from that quarter as well as from the front.

Yours, &c.,

HENRY PRINCE,

Brigadier-General.