[Inclosure No. 1.]

BOWERS' HILL, October 6, 1864.

Brigadier-General VOGDES,

Commanding:

GENERAL: I am in receipt of the following telegram:

WASHINGTON, October 6, 1864.

W. F. HOLLOWAY,

Operator, Bowers' Hill:

Close your office soon as possible and relieve O'Brien at Norfolk. Send your instruments to Fort Monroe.

T. T. ECKERT.

[W. F. HOLLOWAY,

Operator.]

[Inclosure No. 2.]

WASHINGTON, October 6, 1864.

COMMANDING GENERAL NEAR NORFOLK:

Owing to the great demand for operators at the front, I am compelled to close the office near Porstmouth. If necessary to be reopened it will be done when more men can be had.

Very respectfully,

THOS. T. ECKERT,

Major and Assistant Superintendent.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA,
Norfolk, Va., October 13, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded to the commanding general of the department.

From information in my possession I attach great importance to the suggestions of General Vogdes in relation to the immediate necessity for a telegraph operator at Bowers' Hill.

G. F. SHEPLEY,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, October 13, 1864-12 m.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT:

Since the receipt of your telegram of 10 p.m. yesterday Major-General Hancock reports the deserter as locating Battery 21 to the east of Fort Sedgwick as the objective point of the enemy's mine. He states, however, that only about 100 yards of gallery had been excavated when he left, beginning inside the enemy's works. This leaves over 400 yards of gallery to be excavated, passing across a deep ravine commanded by our pickets. The probabilities are that the works referred to by the deserters are some of the countermining precautions taken by the enemy, of which we have had numerous reports all along their lines ever since the explosion of the Burnside mine. General Hancock has, however, taken, and will take, all proper precautions, but he does not deem the contingency sufficiently probable to justify the withdrawal