At Cumming's Point there is one company (C) of First South Carolina [Regular] Infantry [Third Artillery].

Other reliefs will be made to-night, and it is now so arranged that in order to relieve the garrison as often as necessary, less transportation than heretofore will be required.

I keep the garrison at Battery Wagner as near 1,200 men as possible.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. S. RIPLEY,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Brigadier General THOMAS JORDAN,

Chief of Staff.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST MILITARY DISTRICT,
Charleston, August 1, 1863.

GENERAL: Since my report of the 22nd [ultimo], detailing the operations in this command up to the 20th, inclusive, the plan of the enemy, as I then stated, seems to have been changed. There has been no attempt at a further assault upon our works on Morris Island. From the 21st to 24th there has been occasional firing both from the enemy's fleet and land batteries; but his time has been chiefly occupied in the erection and completion of three new batteries on that portion of the island in his possession, thus advancing his lines as far as could be done with safety.

On the 21st, the enemy sent in, by flag of truce, a communication from General Gillmore, with a request that the officer commanding Battery Wagner would give to General [Israel] Vogdes, who accompanied it, a personal interview. While Captain [Carlos] Tracy, the staff officer of General Hagood, then in command, was bearing the message brought by the flag both the fleet and the land batteries reopened their fire, and General Hagood very properly refused to receive any communication until an apology had been made for this violation of the flag. A satisfactory explanation having been offered and accepted, an interview was had between General Hagood and General Vogdes, which terminated in an arrangement to exchange the wounded prisoners on both sides, and 10 o'clock on the following Friday appointed as the hour when the transports from each party should effect the exchange at the point from which the fleet have usually conducted the attack upon Battery Wagner.

On the morning of the 25th, the day upon which the exchange was to be effected, the enemy opened fire about daylight both from the fleet and land batteries. This fire was vigorously sustained until the arrival, about 10 o'clock, of the flag-of-truce boat conveying the prisoners, and for a portion of that time was equal in intensity to the bombardment of the 18th. Upon the arrival of the boat in the neighborhood of the place appointed, the firing ceased and the exchange was regularly effected, we delivering 105 and receiving 39 wounded prisoners. No reference having been made in the agreement to the negro prisoners of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, none of them were included in the exchange, a report of which (by Colonel [E. C.] Anderson and Major [J. M.] Middleton, the officers appointed to conduct it) has already been furnished.