The armistice above declared applies to your command and the forces opposing you. Publish it and communicate it to the army.

By order of General Johnston:

ARCHER ANDERSON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

General SAM. JONES,

Tallahassee, Fla.

Pending the armistice I ask that you receive the prisoners mentioned in my dispatch to-day. They are now on the road to Lake City, Fla.

SAM. JONES,

Major-General.]

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, April 22, 1865.

Major-General DIX,

New York City:

Yesterday evening a bearer of dispatches arrived from General Sherman. An agreement for a suspension of hostilities and a memorandum of what is called a basis for peace had been entered into on the 18th instant by General Sherman with the rebel General Johnston, the rebel General Breckingridge being present at the conference. A cabiret meeting was held at 8 o'clock in the evening, at which the action of General Sherman was disapproved by the President, by the Secretary of War, by General Grant, and by every member of the cabinet. General Sherman was ordered to resume hostilities immediately, and he was directed that the instructions given by the late President in the following telegram, which was penned by Mr. Lincoln himself, at the Capitol, on the night of the 3rd of March, were approved by President Andrew Johnston, and were reiterated to govern the action of military commanders. On the night of the 3rd of March, while President Lincoln and his cabinet were at the Capitol, a telegram from General Grant was brought to the Secretary of War, informing him that General Lee had requested an interview or confederence to make an arangement for terms of peace. The letter of General Lee was published in a message of Davis to the rebel Congress. General Grant's telegram was submitted to Mr. Lincoln, who after pondering a few minutes, took up his pen and wrote with his own hd the following reply, which he submitted to the Secretary of State and Secretary of War. It was then dated, addressed, and signed by the Secretary of War, and telegraphed to General Grant:

President Lincoln's Instructions.

MARCH 3, 1865-12 p. m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army or on some minor and purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confe upon any political questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military confederences or coventions. Meantime you are to press to the utmost your military advantages.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

The orders of General Sherman to General Stoneman to withdraw from Salisbury and join him will probably open the way for Davis to escape to Mexico of Europe with his plunder, which is reported to be