HEADQUARTERS THIRD DIVISION, SECOND CORPS,
August 26, 1864.

Major General A. A. HUMPHREYS,

Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac:

GENERAL: Inclosed I forward you an order issued at Richmond, August 15, 1864, and is now being distributed to our pickets wherever circumstances will admit it. Where the pickets are near enough they are thrown over; at other places they are left near springs, &c., where the pickets of each army get water.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. MOTT,

Brigadier-General.

[Inclosure.]

GENERAL ORDERS
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Numbers 65.
Richmond, Va., August 15, 1864.

I. It having been represented to the War Department that there are numbers of foreigners entrapped by artifice and fraud into the military and naval service of the United States who would gladly withdraw from further participation in the inhuman warfare waged against a people who have never given them a pretext for hostility; and that there are many inhabitants of the United States now retained in that service against their will who are averse to aiding in the unjust war now being prosecuted against the confederate States; and it being also known that these men are prevented from abandoning such compulsory service by the difficulty they experience in escaping therefrom; it is ordered that all such persons, coming within the lines of the Confederate armies, shall be received, protected, and supplied with means of subsistence, until such of them as desire it can be forwarded to the most convenient points on the border, where all facilities will be afforded them to return to their homes.

By order:

S. COOPER,

Adjutant and Inspector General.

HDQRS. THIRD BRIGADE, THIRD DIVISION, SECOND CORPS,
August 26, 1864.

[Major JOHN HANCOCK:]

MAJOR: In obedience to a verbal inquiry of Major-General Meade this morning at division headquarters, I would respectfully state that this command arrived at the intersection of the plank road and Reams' Station road at 5 p. m. yesterday, where our troops were massed on both sides of the road. At the close of this the head of Willcox's command passed by toward Reams' Station.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. McALLISTER,

Colonel Eleventh New Jersey Volunteers, Commanding Brigade.

HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS,
August 26, 1864-3 a. m.

Major-General HUMPHRREYS:

Lieutenant Howell has just returned from General Hancock's and informs me that General Hancock's troops will take up position around

34 R R-VOL XLII. PT II