were speaking. Please give him an order, to be transmitted through him to the commander of your naval forces in the Sound, to co-operate in the fullest extent with General Palmer and to move with all promptness and celerity. General Wild will show you the orders, which are unsealed for that purpose, which he takes to General Palmer. If anything occurs to you which I have not covered in my instructions, please telegraph me, and I will reach General Wild by telegraph before he leaves Fort Monroe.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE JAMES,
November 30, 1864.

Brigadier General JOHN W. TURNER,

Chief of Staff:

GENERAL: The signal officer on the Cobb's Hill signal tower reports that at 3.30 p. m. "a train of five loaded cars loaded with troops, and six open cars, with six pieces of artillery, passed Port Walthall Junction, going toward Richmond."

Very respectfully, &c.,

L. B. NORTON,

Captain and Chief Signal Officer, Dept. of Va. and N. C.

CAMP TWENTY-SECOND U. S. COLORED TROOPS,

In the Field, Va., November 30, 1864.

Captain ISRAEL R. SEALY,

Asst. Adjt. General, Hdqrs. Dept. of Va. and N. C., in the Field, Va.:

SIR: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 24th instant directing us to state fully, in writing, the grounds of complaint against Colonel Kiddoo. In compliance with this request we beg leave to state that our complaint against Colonel Kiddoo is based upon that most disgraceful rout the Twenty-second U. S. Colored Troops sustained on the evening of the 27th ultimo. May we be allowed here to add that, as for the mere matter of taking the redoubt on which we charged, there never was a task, in our opinion, easier to be accomplished, nor did men ever come up better to their work than our men did at that time, considering their exhausted condition. Passing by what does in fact not concern us, whether it was intended by those high in command that the fort in question should be taken, or whether it was tenable after it was taken, we, from our subordinate standpoint, can ascribe our failure only to Colonel Kiddoo's management, the cause of which, we are impressed, was his being under the influence of liquor. We ask the indulgence of the major-general commanding to lend us his ear while we state a few disconnected instances, which, among others, created that impression. Early in the morning of October 26 our regiment left its place in the trenches and bivouacked a short distance in the rear. During this day Colonel Kiddoo was not with the regiment. Late in the afternoon he approached, in undress, a group of officers of the Twenty-second U. S. Colored Troops, sitting around a camp-fire, asking, "What regiment is this?" And when answered, "The