HEADQUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, FIFTH CORPS, Near Petersburg, Va., August 3, 1864.

Colonel N. T. DUSHANE,
Commanding Second Brigade:

COLONEL: The general commanding directs that your command be held ready to vacate your present camp at once for the purpose of bivouacking on the left of the line, which position you will maintain for about one week. If you think best a small camp guard may be left behind, but the shelter-tents will be struck and taken along. You will please send a staff officer to report at these headquarters the moment you are ready to move.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRED. WINTHROP,

Captain, Twelfth Infantry, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

[AUGUST 3, 1864.-For Meade to Burnside, inclosing copy of charges and specifications against the latter, see Vol. XL, Part I, p. 531.]

HEADQUARTERS NINTH ARMY CORPS, August 3, 1864-9.20 p. m.

General WILLIAMS:

There is nothing of moment to report as occurring on my line. Last night some force of the enemy was reported as moving to our left, but it is impossible to say what strength. Everything was held in readiness, according to dispatch of last night.

A. E. BURNSIDE,
Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS NINTH ARMY CORPS, Before Petersburg, Va., August 3, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel L. RICHMOND,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: By order of the general commanding I questioned Colonel Thomas in reference to his capture on the 1st of August. He had been conversing with several officers of our service and of the rebel army on the narrow neutral ground between the lines of sentinels. Finding the hour of the truce nearly expired, he turned, intending to re-enter our lines at the point where his own command was placed, some distance to the left of where the mine was sprung. At a ravine, which runs into our line opposite our left center, the line of our main works is not continuous, the right considerably overlapping the left. Not being familiar with our lines (as his division had been placed there only the day previous) he failed to notice the change of direction in our front until challenged by the enemy's pickets. He informed them that he was returning to his own lines, not seeking to enter theirs. They insisted, however, upon carrying him in a prisoner. He insisted upon being blindfolded when led through their lines and was brought before General Bushrod Johnson. General Johnson was disposed to consider him a prisoner of war. The officer who commanded the pickets took the opposite view