NEW YORK, April 4, 1864.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

General-in-Chief, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I beg to inclose to you a copy of letter sent in January last* to the Secretary of War. Not knowing if you had seen the latter, and in view of the fact that the Ninth Army Corps, including the old Third Division, will probably be in a few days concentrated at Annapolis and below, with a strength of 40,000 or more men, I deem it not improper to send it for your consideration.

Some of the regiments of the old Third Division are now in the Department of the South, and I would respectfully suggest that some of the old regiments that were with me in North Carolina, and now on furlough from the Department of the South, should be ordered to take their place in the Third Division.

The Twenty-fourth Massachusetts and the Eleventh Connecticut are the two regiments which I would like to have report, instead of the One hundred and seventeenth and One hundred and third and Third New York, now on Folly Island.

The Third Division can be concentrated at Norfolk, or such other point as you may think desirable, and would by this arrangement be composed of the following regiments: The Eighth, Eleventh, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Twenty-first Connecticut, the Tenth and Thirteenth New Hampshire, the Fourth Rhode Island, now in General Butler's command, and the Eighty-ninth New York, now on furlough.

If orders could be issued for concentrating this division it would to some extent increase enlistments in the different regiments. I am interesting myself in the recruiting, as if the order had already been issued. I made the application for the increased artillery to General Halleck, and suppose it has been laid before you.

It would seem advisable that the batteries should be ordered to report to the headquarters of the Ninth Corps at Annapolis. It might be advisable to concentrate the Third Division in North Carolina, if it is decided that the future operations of the corps are to be in that section.

I send this by Lieutenant Van Vliet, of my staff.

I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. E. BURNSIDE,

Major-General.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
Fort Monroe, April 4, 1864.

Commodore JOHN W. LIVINGSTON,

Commanding Naval Station, Norfolk:

COMMODORE: Lieutenant-General Grant shared with me the regret we both felt at not being able to land at the navy-yard and meet you, as we had proposed, owing to the threatening inclemency of the weather, which rendered it necessary for us to return at once. I trust in a few days we shall see General Grant here again, when we will endeavor to do that which we failed to do on Friday.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

B. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

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*See of January 26, and Stanton's reply, January 29, pp. 427, 443.

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