ARTILLERY HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, December 17, 1864.

Dear General ABBOT:

Your application for leave of absence has been returned from General Meade. He says I can send it up to General Grant. Let me know clearly if your whole regiment is reported to General Butler. Has it ever been assigned in orders to General Butler's army? I want to make as strong a statement as possible to General Grant to get the train assigned regularly to this army and work it in with the general reorganization of the artillery. Send me a note back with this, with all the data which will give me a good showing in your case.

Truly, yours,

H. J. HUNT.

HDQRS. U. S. FORCES, EASTERN SHORE OF VIRGINIA, Eastville, Va., December 17, 1864.

Major W. HOFFMAN,
Assistant Adjutant-General:

MAJOR: I have not yet forwarded Company A, Purnell [Maryland] Cavalry, to Norfolk, for the reason that if I relieve them before any troops arrive to take their place I shall be obliged to leave entirely unguarded some forty miles of the telegraph here. I am anxious that they should be relieved, but hope that no colored cavalry will be sent here. In carrying out General Orders, No. 46, headquarters Department of Virginia and North Carolina, I have much trouble with the negro population of this shore, and should colored cavalry come here its execution would be almost impossible. The cavalry here must be also detached, under the command of

non-commissioned officers, along the shore, and I could not place colored non-commissioned officers in charge of the ports of this district.

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

FRANK J. WHITE,

Lieutenant Colonel, Commanding U. S. Forces, Eastern Shore of Virginia.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA, Norfolk, Va., December 18, 1864.

Respectfully forwarded to headquarters of the department with the request that a squadron of cavalry may be sent at once to relieve the Purlnell Cavalry. The Third New York Cavalry, recently reported to me, number fewer men than the Twentieth New York, relieved, and I have no troops to send to the Eastern Shore.

G. F. SHEPLEY,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December 18, 1864.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

In my opinion no general order should be issued which would authorize subordinate military commanders to invade a foreign country with which we are at peace at their discretion. If such officer should pursue marauders fitted out in Canada to depredate upon our frontier, it should