and J. R. Gilmore, esq., be allowed to meet the undersigned at such place between the lines of the two armies as may be designated, having been referred to the War Department, I am directed to request you to notify Lieutenant-General Grant that I will be in attendance at some convenient point between Deep Bottom and Chaffin's Bluff (say at Mrs. Grover's) on Thursday, the 14th instant, at 1 p. m., to receive any communication which the above-named parties have to make. *

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
In the Field, July 12, 1864.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

Commanding Armies of the United States:

GENERAL: I have the honor to forward the sworn testimony of Samuel Johnson as to the occurrences at Plymouth after its capture.

The man is intelligent; was examined by me and duly cautioned as to the necessity of telling the exact truth, and this is his reiterated statement, in which I have confidence as to its main features and substantial accuracy.

It seems very clear to me that something should be done in retaliation for this outrage. Many prisoners have been taken from the Eighth North Carolina Regiment. The Sixth is still at Plymouth.

Were I commanding independently in the field I should take this matter into my own hands, but now deem in my duty to submit it to the better and cooler judgment of the lieutenant-general commanding. For myself, at the present moment I am far too much moved by the detail of these occurrences to act in the matter.

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

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
In the Field, July 11, 1864.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

I am orderly sergeant of Company D, Second U. S. Colored Cavalry. In about April last I went to Plymouth, N. C., in company with Sergeant French, a white man, who acted as recruiting officer, to take charge of some recruits, and was there at the time of the capture of Plymouth by the rebel forces.

When I found that the city was being surrendered I pulled off my uniform and found a suit of citizen's clothes, which I put on, and when captured I was supposed and believed by the rebels to be a citizen. After being captured I was kept at Plymouth for some two weeks and was employed in endeavoring to raise the sunken vessels of the Union fleet.

From Plymouth I was taken to Weldon and from thence to Raleigh, N. C., where I was detailed about a month, and then was forwarded to Richmond, where I remained until about the time of the battles near Richmond, when I went with Lieutenant Johnson, of the Sixth North Carolina Regiment, as his servant, to Hanover Junction. I did not remain there over four or five days before I made my escape into the lines of the Union army and was sent to Washington, D. C., and then duly forwarded to my regiment in front of Petersburg.

Upon the capture of Plymouth by the rebel forces all the negroes found in blue uniform, or with any outward marks of a Union soldier upon him, was killed. I saw

* For further correspondence on this subject see Series I, Vol. XL, Part III, pp. 201, 202.