SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Numbers 159.
City Point, Va., December 28, 1864.

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II. Major General B. F. Butler, commanding Army of the James, will send forward and deliver to Judge Robert Ould, agent of Exchange, C. S. Army, at Boulware's Wharf, on the James River, at 1 o'clock p. m. Saturday, December 31, 1864, 1,000 army blankets, consigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchins, First New Hampshire Cavalry, for distribution to Federal prisoners of war confined at Richmond and vicinity.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

T. S. BOWERS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,

City Point, Va., December 28, 1864.

Major General B. F. BUTLER, Commanding Army of the James:

Please instruct Lieutenant-General Hutchins, First New Hampshire Cavalry, consignee of blankets for Federal prisoners at Richmond, to be sent through Judge Ould on the 31st instant, to distribute said blankets among such of our prisoners at Richmond as may be without blankets at the rate of one to each officer and enlisted man. Such of them as are already supplied with that number will not be furnished additional ones. Should he have any on hand after supplying our prisoners at and in the vicinity of Richmond he will procure them to be sent and distributed in like manner among our prisoners at the nearest point to Richmond where we may have any.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

JOHN A. RAWLINS,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Staff.

RICHMOND, December 28, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel JOHN E. MULFORD, Assistant Agent of Exchange:

SIR: I understand that Private J. R. H. Embert, Braxton Lyon, and Samuel B. Hearn, belonging to the Maryland cavalry, and who were captured in Maryland in Confederate uniform, are now serving out a sentence of hard labor at the Albany penitentiary. Will you please inform me if this is so, and why?

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December 28, 1864.

Colonel C. W. HILL,

Commanding Johnson's Island, near Sandusky City:

COLONEL: By direction of the Secretary of War all rebel generals held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island will be at once transferred to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. A discreet officer furnished with a guard sufficient to prevent the possibility of escape, and with written