may participate therein. The persons who have come into the United States from Canada upon this business belong to one or the other of the following classes: First. Citizens of insurgent States who have been engaged in the rebel service or in acts of hostility against the United States during the present rebellion. Second. Deserters from the military service of the United States. third. persons who have been drafted, or subject to draft, for military service, and have fled to escape their obligation to their country. All of these persons are liable to punishment, under military law, for the offenses they have already committed. Although you may be unable to prevent such persons from coming within the United States, and perhaps from voting at the election, yet their presence here will afford an opportunity, with proper vigilance, for their arrest and punishment. You will therefore direct your attention especially to the adoption of measures to prevent their escape form the States or districts into which they may come, and for their capture. All provost-marshals in the States within your command are subject to your order. You will give to them such directions as your judgment may dictate, and apply for such force as may be required to establish on the Canadian frontier a perfect cordon, through which the miscreants will not be able to escape. It will be proper also for you to give timely notice to the electors within your command of the danger threatened from the sources above referred to, so as to enable them to take measures for their own security and to aid the military authority.

Your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

CITY POINT, VA., October 24, 1864-12 m.

(Received Washington 1 p. m.)

Major General JOHN A. DIX,

Commanding Department of the East, New York:

I will send you one of the reduced regular regiments from here. By recruiting this, it may give you forces enough. If it does not, you can retain some new regiment of volunteers.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

CEDAR CREEK, VA., October 25, 1864-10 p. m.

(Received 26th.)

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

City Point, Va.:

I have found it impossible to move on the Central railroad as you desired. If I do so it must be up the Valley via Swift Run Gap, or Brown's Gap, or across via Front Royal and Chester Gap. to move up the Valley via the routes designated would be exceedingly difficult, on account of supplies and forage, and would demoralize the troops, now in magnificent trim. To move by Chester Gap I would have to leave at least 5,000 (the whole of General Crook's) in the Valley. To open the Orange and Alexandria Railroad would require a corps on it to protect it, which would leave me very little to operate with successfully. To advance against Gordonsville and Charlottesville with a line of communica-