[Indorsement.]

General ORD:

This intercepted rebel dispatch may relieve you from apprehension of attack.

BENJ. F. BUTLER.

HDQRS. DEPT OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER,
August 24, 1864.

Colonel SHAFFER,

Chief of Staff:

COLONEL: I have incidentally heard that the Tenth Corps moves this p. m. to relieve the Eighteenth. If this is so, and the Eighteenth comes here, will you please inform me, as I shall have to make some arrangements in regard to keeping up the communication with the James River after the Tenth Corps has taken its signal officers away.

Respectfully, &c.,

L. B. NORTON,

Captain and Chief Signal Officer.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF VA. AND N. C.,

Numbers 232. August 24, 1864.

* * * * * * * * * * *

IV. Major-General Birney, commanding Tenth Corps, will with his corps relieve the Eighteenth Corps, under command of Major-General Ord, from duty on the left of the line of this army. Major-General Ord, upon being relieved by the troops under General Birney, will occupy the north side of the James with his brigade of negro troops at Deep Bottom. With Ames' division he will occupy the intrenched line between the Appomattox and the James. He will encamp at Spring Hill, the division under Brigadier-General Carr as a reserve. If Generals Birney and Ord will consult together and make such movements of their troops as will allow this charge without attracting the notice of the enemy, save that there is no objection that the enemy shall see the troops of the Tenth Corps marching to the left; the movement of the Eighteenth Corps to the right it would be better to conceal. The light artillery along the two lines will be quietly charged by detachments, so as to attract no notice and be all the time in a state of efficiency. So much of the artillery of the Eighteenth Corps as will replace that which is now serving with the Eighteenth Corps from the Tenth Corps will be left on the line on the left, so as to preserve there the necessary number of guns. Further orders to arrange details, if necessary, will be issued as the movements progress.

By command of Major-General Butler:

R. S. DAVIS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.