HEADQUARTERS SECOND CORPS,
August 23, 1864-7.30 p.m.

General HUMPHREYS,

Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac:

General Miles has worked up to within a mile of Reams'. The heavy rain has put out part of his fires. The enemy's pickets are at the Slater house, and General Miles' pickets within 1,000 yards of them. General Gregg had ordered a regiment to drive them away from Reams'. Colonel Spear says he drove the enemy's skirmishers on the Vaughan or Bohn road two miles toward Petersburg, where a bridge had been destroyed. He states that their infantry pickets extended to this point. The cavalry retired in the direction of Petersburg. Slater's house is where the Vaughan road intersects the Reams' Station road. Colonel Spear met nothing but cavalry. The rain has made it impossible for a horseman to ride to the railroad by the route General Miles took to-day.

WINF'D S. HANCOCK,

Major-General.

General Gregg pickets a mile and a half below where the plank road crosses the Blackwater.

W. S. H.

HEADQUARTERS SECOND ARMY CORPS,
August 23, 1864-8.30 p.m.

Major-General MEADE:

Your dispatch of 7.15 received. I inclose you a dispatch from General Warren, which was neglected to be inclosed by him at the time, and which was received afterward.* I had previously directed General Barlow who now commands Miles' division, and General Gregg, to send out and ascertain the number of the enemy's dead, if Colonel Spear held the field; and had directed that the road at a suitable place, where a swamp passes through it, be intrenched, in order to hold it. I will call upon General Miles and General Gregg for the explanation you desire.

WINF'D S. HANCOCK,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST DIVISION, SECOND CORPS,
August 23, 1864-1.30 p.m. (Received 2 p.m.)

Lieutenant-Colonel WALKER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

COLONEL: I have the honor to report that a misapprehension seems to exist as to the progress made by this division in destroying the railroad. On my arrival this morning the railroad was destroyed only to a point about one mile north of Reams' Station. I have sent a brigade to Reams' Station, which up to this time is unoccupied, and am destroying the railroad south as fast as possible. General Gregg is co-operating according to his orders, and is now with his command at Reams' Station, and will occupy the station when we get farther south. The

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*See 5.25 p.m., p. 427.

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