HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Savannah, Ga., January 7, 1865.

Brigadier General CHARLES R. WOODS,

Commanding First Division, Fifteenth Army Corps:

GENERAL: I am directed by the general commanding to inform you that orders have been received at these headquarters looking to an early embarkation of the corps. You will therefore hold your division in readiness for a movement by water, reducing by inspections the baggage of the command to a proper limit. Division quartermasters will confer with Lieutenant-Colonel Fort, Chief quartermaster for the corps, with therefore to transportation, and division commissaries with Lieutenant-Colonel Carpenter as to the amount of rations to be procured. When the order for the embarkation shall be issued it will be by divisions, and all details then absent will be drawn in, their place being supplied by others from the remaining divisions of the corps.

These instructions will be considered as confidential.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

MAX. WOODHULL,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

(Same to Generals Hazen, Smith, and Corse.)

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., January 7, 1865.

Major General W. T. SHERMAN:

GENERAL: I have the honor to inclose to you a late Charleston paper, and the report of a deserter from the Third South Carolina Cavalry. It appears that a force of militia, estimated by General Hatch at 5,000 men, is assembling at or near Grahamville. General Hatch estimated the force in his front at 6,000 men. He thinks preparations are in progress by the enemy for evacuating the country near the coast and as far north as the Ashepoo River. Reports from General Schimmelfennig, at Morris Island, state that the enemy on James Island is being re-enforced. I shall send one regiment to General Schimmelfennig at once. The proclamation of the governor of South Carolina and the official orders published in the paper show that the State is girding up her loins for the coming fight. "All persons capable of bearing arms between the ages of sixteen and sixty "is rather trenching on the "cradle and the grave. "

Very respectfully and truly,

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
Hilton Head, S. C., January 7, 1865.

Brigadier General A. SCHIMMELFENING,

Commanding Northern District, Morris Island, S. C.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your official report of the 30th ultimo inclosing copy of an intercepted dispatch in regard to Fort Fisher. * I am directed by the Major-general

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* See Vol. XLIV, p. 839.

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