HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, In the Field, Charleston, S. C., May 3, 1865.

Major-General GILLMORE,
Commanding Department of the South:

GENERAL: I have this moment received the inclosed dispatches* from Schofield and Wilson, and send them for your information. It is important that General Wilson should know the substance, also, of General Schofield's dispatch, which, if sent in cipher, will answer. I will go up to Morehead City to-night, and can send a dispatch through to General Wilson by the telegraph, but the occupation of Augusta and the line of the Savannah is all important.

Yours, truly,

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, Hilton Head, S. C., May 3, 1865.

Brigadier General J. P. HATCH,
Commanding Northern Dist., Dept. of the South, Charleston, S. C.:

GENERAL: The major-general commanding directs me to inclose a copy of General Orders, No. 55, from these headquarters, dated May 3 instant, upon the subject of trade. + To meet the immediate requirements of returning quiet along our military lines, and until further orders from these headquarters, he directs that you place the following construction upon the last sentence of Lieutenant-General Grant's Special Orders, No. 48, dated March 10, 1865, and which was republished in General Orders, No. 38, current series, from these headquarters. You will regard the lines of your actual military occupation as extending to Orangeburg, S. C., and such territory on each side of your lines of communication therewith as you can keep under military surveillance, and also about Georgetown as far as you can keep under military surveillance.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. D. HODGES,

Captain, Thirty-fifth U. S. Colored Troops, and Actg. Asst. Adjt. General

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. NORTHERN DISTRICT,
DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, No. 32.
Charleston, S. C., May 3, 1865.

The brigadier-general commanding has the gratification of announcing to the troops in this district that on the 26th ultimo a convention was entered into between General W. T. Sherman, U. S. Army, and General Johnston, commanding Confederate army, by the terms of which we have every reason to expect a lasting peace. Confederate armies east of thte Chattahoochee are to be disbanded; the officers and men to return to their homes; all acts of war to cease from date of convention. A national salut will be fired at 12 m. to-day from the forts in Charleston Harbor, the Citadel Green, and the U. S. Arsenal.

By command of Brigadier General John P. Hatch:

LEONARD B. PERRY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

---------------

*See Schofield to Sherman, April 29, and Wilson to Sherman, April 20, pp. 349,354.

+Gilmore's General Orders, No. 55, published General Orders, Nos. 70 and 74, from War Department, for which see Vol. XLVI, Part III, pp. 809,956.

---------------