collecting individuals scattered" within your lines and your promptness in sending them when found.

I respectfully request that hereafter all communications by flag of truce will be by land as heretofore, as I shall feel constrained to decline receiving flags of truce by boats sent up the river.

I inclose herewith a letter to the Honorable Edward Stanly and two others, which I would thank you to forward.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. MARTIN,

Brigadier-General.

FORT MONROE, November 3, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

I have just learned that Major-General Wool has gone to Accomack County with a large force. Two companies of Wilkins' regiment of Maryland Home Guards refused to land at Pungoteague on Wednesday last. I sent over my gunboat on a call from General Lockwood, but before it arrived the malcontents had returned to their duty. The regiment was raised expressly to serve in Maryland; hence the discontent, which was, however, very brief.

JOHN A. DIX,

Major-General.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA, SEVENTH ARMY CORPS,
Fort Monroe, Va., November 3, 1862.

Actg. Rear-Admiral S. P. LEE,

Commanding North Atlantic Blockading Squadron:

ADMIRAL: I believe I have never urged on you any matter a compliance with which would have been a violation of your instructions from the Navy Department. It is only in cases which I considered within your discretion that I have ventured to press on you my own views. They are now in possession of the Government and, I have no doubt, will be satisfactorily disposed of.

The permits given by me, which the Secretary of the Navy in his letter to you on the 29th ultimo says "cannot be recognized," were in accordance, in some instances, with a special authority from the Secretary of the Treasury, and in others with a general authority emanating from the same Department. I shall of course give no more until this conflict of opinion and action is reconciled.

In regard to the occurrence alluded to in your letter of the 31st ultimo within the fort, it is proper to state that there is a permanent rule, adopted long ago, that no officer can go upon the ramparts without the permission of the officer of the day, unless he is accompanied by the commanding general or one of his staff. The rule is applicable to all officers, whether belonging to the garrison or not, or whether of the Army or Navy. The case would be precisely similar if I had gone on board of one of your vessels without announcing myself.

But in the case of the harbor I respectfully suggest that it is entirely different. I have from the beginning objected to the blockade of this fort by a gunboat stationed under its guns as entirely unprecedented, unnecessary, and in disregard of the comity and friendly understanding which should exist between your service and mine, and which I am most anxious to preserve.

29 R R - VOL XVIII