Hinks' signal officer immediately occupied the enemy's station, and from there opened communication with general headquarters on board the Greyhound and with other boats as they came in view. After the capture of City Point we then ascended the river about a mile to Bermuda Hundred, which was occupied by the Tenth and the remainder of the Eighteenth Corps. During the evening of the 5th general headquarters remained on the Greyhound, and signal communication was had with the troops on shore, with City Point and the different headquarters still on boats in the harbor.

Early on the morning of May 6 an officer was sent to occupy an old rebel signal station at Bermuda, and communication opened at once from it to General Hinks' headquarters at City Point. The advance of the forces under Major General W. F. Smith having reached Port Walt hall, his officer occupied a rebel station at Cobb's Hill, which was abandoned on our approach, and from it obtained communication with City Point, and through the latter with general headquarters on board the Greyhound. On the same day the signal officer at Wilson's Wharf, accompanied, a detachment of the First U. S. Colored Troops, which captured the rebel signal station party and equipments at Sandy Point, on the James River. The enemy's signalized made an armed defense, and the sergeant in charge and 3 of his men were killed before the surrender took place. The record of all the dispatches and reports sent and received through that rebel station was captured and forwarded to the commanding general. It was noticed that while our fleet was ascending the river on the 5th of May the enemy's stations on both sides were actively engaged in reporting our movements until the very moment of the captured of the City Point station, when their line to Petersburg was severed. the Sandy Point station, alluded to above was one of those thus cut off from the terminus, and it would never have been captured had not the sergeant in charge placed a too literal, construction upon his orders, which were to remain at this until "driven off by the Yankees." Signal communication was kept up during the 6th between the flag-ship of Admiral Lee and general headquarters. On the 7th an officer was sent to Turkey Bend to open a temporary intermediate station between the flag-ship Malvern, which had moved up the James to Curl's Neck and general headquarter in the Greyhound. Through this line Admiral Lee transmitted his official report (to the Navy Department and to the general commanding) of the loss of the gun-boats Shawsheen and Commodore Jones, the former having been destroyed by a rebel battery, and the latter by a rebel torpedo. On the same day, the Tenth Army Corps having taken a position with its right resting on the James River opposite Farrar's Island, a station of observation was established at the Curtis house, near that point and an officer placed there to watch the rebel signal stations on the north bank of the river and the Drewry's and Ball's Bluffs batteries. His observations were reported to Major-General Gillmore. On May 8, the army gun-boats having gone up the Appomattox River to protect the left of our army, communication was opened between the flag-ship of General Graham and the Cobb's Hill station, near General Smith's and General Butler's headquarters, which latter was moved into camp during the afternoon of this day. On the 9th a reconnaissance in force toward Petersburg was made by Hinks' division from City Point and communication by signals was kept up between the land forces and