HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
September 7, 1864.

Major THEO. READ,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

Signal officer at Crow's Nest station reports mortar firing on our Dutch Gap working party, but soon silenced by our guns and mortars. Enemy still at work on Cox's Ferry earth-works. Enemy seen working at Howlett's battery; think they are building traverses, but not certain, as cannot get good view of them.

Very respectfully,

THEO. F. PETERSON,

First Lieutenant, Signal Corps, U. S. Army,

HDQRS. SECOND CAVALRY BRIGADE, KAUTZ'S DIVISION,
Near Olive Branch Church, September 7, 1864.

Captain M. J. ASCH,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General:

CAPTAIN: I learn that about sunrise this morning several rebel soldiers were seen near Doctor Bryant's house. A few were mounted. I have just returned from a visit along the right of the line. There is a safeguard named Gay, Thirty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, at Doctor Bryant's. The officers complain that on other occasions when rebels have been seen about there that he is very uncommunicative and they are suspicious of him. As this safeguard is outside of our picket-line nearly a quarter of a mile, I respectfully submit that he should either be withdrawn or relieved. Our line is so thin that it is impossible to keep out determined and skillful scouts, and I think in places through the woods on the Lawyers' road that a wire could be stretched from tree to tree, running through small iron staples, so that the picket could hear any one striking the wire during the night. There must be old worn-out telegraph wire about which could be used advantageously. I have directed Major Stratton to endeavor to entrap the parties who come near Doctor Bryant's.

Respectfully, yours,

SAM. WETHERILL,

Major Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, Commanding Brigade.

SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,

Numbers 89.
City Point, Va., September 8, 1864.

1. Hereafter rations will not be sold to citizens residing within the lines of the armies operating against Richmond, unless such persons take the oath of allegiance. Gratuitous issues of provisions will not be make to citizens except on certificates that they are destitute and have no meant of purchasing, and in such cases issues will be made in accordance with General Orders, Numbers 64, Adjutant-General's Office, War Department. Citizens who are inimical to the Government or refuse to take the oath of allegiance, will be sent into the enemy's lines. Those citizens who take the oath of allegiance will be sent to the Northern States if they desire to go there.

By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

T. S. BOWERS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.