intensely cold, materially affecting and damaging machinery, but the movement had continued, on the whole, exceedingly successful, in view of the surrounding difficulties, and with favorable prospects of the entire transportation being accomplished without delay.

J. W. GARRETT,

President.

CITY POINT, VA., January 28, 1865-1. 30 p.m.

Brigadier General D. H. RUCKER,

Chief Quartermaster:

We require transports to send to North Carolina. Those already sent are not promptly returned. There are two vessels now at Fort Monroe, which you had ordered to Washington. As the Potomac is closed may these vessels be ordered here? If so, please telegraph Colonel Webster or Captain James at Fort Monroe. Try and keep Annapolis open at all hazards. There is only some six days' cattle on hand, but, if necessary, they will last a longer time. It is colder than yesterday, though this river is free of ice to-day. We have some eleven days' grain and one and a half of hay and plenty of subsistence.

R. INGALLS,

Brigadier-General and Chief Quartermaster.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Pocotaligo, S. C., January 29, 1865.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

City Point, Va.:

DEAR GENERAL: Captain Hudson has this moment arrived with your letter of January 21, which I have read with interest. The capture of Fort Fisher has a most important bearing on my campaign and I rejoice in it for many reasons, because of its intrinsic importance and because it gives me another point of security on the sea-board. I hope General Terry will follow it up by the capture of Wilmington, although I do not look for it from Admiral Porter's dispatch to me. I rejoiced that Terry was not a West Pointer, that he belonged to your Army, and that he had the same troops with which Butler feared to make the attempt. Porter is in high glee.

Admiral Dahglreen, whose fleet is re-enforced by some more iron-clads, wants to make an assault a la Fisher on Fort Moultrie, but I withhold my consent for the reason that the capture of all Sullivan's Island is not conclusive as to Charleston. The capture of James Island would be, but all pronounce that impossible at this time; therefore, I am moving, as hitherto designed, for the railroad west of Branchville; then swing across to Orangeburg, which will interpose my army between Charleston and the interior. Contemporaneous with this Foster will demonstrate up the Edisto and afterward make a lodgment at Bull's Bay and occupy the common road which leads from Mount Pleasant toward Georgetown. When I get to Columbia I think I shall move straight for Goldsborough, via Fayetteville. By this circuit I cut all roads and devastate the land, and the forces along the coast, commanded by Foster, will follow my movement, taking anything the enemy lets go, or so occupies his attention that he cannot detach all his forces against me. I feel sure of getting Wilmington and may be Charleston, and being at Goldsborough, with its railroads finished