yourself or the War Department with regard to it. Having no instructions, I have endeavored to carry out, so far as possible, the policy adopted in Savannah, which was, I understand, sanctioned by the Department. I am now collecting the cotton, using the new customhouse as a place of deposit. Each lot is marked and entered in a book, with the name of the claimant and any peculiar circumstances connected with it, which may be of some service either to the Government or the owner. No receipts have been given, as I am informed none were given in Savannah. If the Department should decide to give receipts the books are so kept that they can be given by reference to them. I would also request instructions with regard to rosin, turpentine, and tobacco found here. There will undoubtedly be quite a large amount of these valuable articles and I am now seizing them.

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

JOHN P. HATCH,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

CITY POINT, March 17, 1865-2 p. m.

Major General W. T. SHERMAN:

Dispatches have just been received from Sheridan. * After leaving Columbia, the point at which his first dispatch was dated, he proceeded to Goochland, destroying the canal to that place. He then moved up to the Virginia Central Railroad at Tolersville and destroyed it down to Beaver Dam Station, totally destroying fifteen miles of the road. The Ashland and South Anna bridges were destroyed. There is not now a bridge on the road from South Anna to Lynchburg. He will reach White House to-night. His command is in good condition.

T. S. BOWERS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, No. 53. City Point, Va., March 17, 1865.

I. First Lieutenant William M. Dunn, Jr., acting aide-de-camp, will proceed as bearer of dispatches to Major General W. T. Sherman, commanding Military Division of the Mississippi, upon the delivery of which he will rejoin these headquarters. He will proceed from City Point to Fort Monroe on the mail boat, and there take the first steamer for New Berne, N. C., from which point he will proceed by the most practicable means. The quartermaster's department will furnish necessary transportation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

T. S. BOWERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,

In the Field, Eighteen Miles Northeast Fayetteville,

March 17, 1865-7 a. m.

Major General O. O. HOWARD,

Commanding Right Wing:

GENERAL: General Slocum found the enemy covering the narrow neck from Taylor's Hole up to the Goldsborough road. He drove

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*See Vol. XLVI, Part II, pp. 918, 993.

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