HEADQUARTERS NINTH ARMY CORPS,.

December 5, 1864.

Brigadier-General POTTER,
Jones' House:

I will not go out this p.m.

JNumbers G. PARKE,

Major-General.

GENERAL BUTLER'S HEADQUARTERS,

December 5, 1864-1.40 p.m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

Richmond papers just in. Sherman reached Milledgeville on the 20th, and left with his main body 25th. They cannot make out where he is or where he is going. Dates of Georgia papers to the 30th. Orderly on the way with papers.

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General of Volunteers.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF VA., AND N. C.,
ARMY OF THE JAMES,

Numbers 387.
In the Field, Va., December 5, 1864

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12. The Sixty-second Ohio Volunteers and One hundred and fifteenth New York Volunteers are relieved from duty with Brigadier-General Ferrero's command, and will repair at once to the line occupied by the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, and report to the commanding officer of the brigade to which they respectively belong.

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27. In compliance with the suggestion of the Department of State, referred to the commanding general by the Secretary of War, a board of inquiry is hereby constituted to investigate the circumstances attending the sinking of the insurgent steamer Florida in Hampton Roads, the causes which led to it, the degree of diligence used to prevent the occurrence, and to report in detail all the evidence which can be collected on the subject as early as practicable. This board will be joined by such officers of equal number as may be appointed by the admiral commanding the North Atlantic Squadron, on the part of the naval force, for the like purpose, and will form a joint board of inquiry. If the admiral commanding shall decline to appoint officers members of the board, then the board hereby constituted will proceed alone in the investigation.

Brigadier-General Shepley, commanding the District of Eastern Virginia; Brigadier General J. B. Carr, commanding Separate Brigade on the northern side of the James; Lieutenant Colonel George A. Kensel, inspector-general of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, are hereby appointed members of the board. Lieutenant-Colonel Kensel will be recorder.

The board of inquiry is authorized to employ a phonographic reporter and empowered to summon witnesses. All persons whosoever knowing any fact or circumstance material to the subject-matter of the investigation are requested to make known the same to the recorder