supply of lemons, and I am issuing cream of tartar wherever I hear any signs of the disease.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHS. S. TRIPLER,

Surgeon and Medical Director Army of the Potomac.

Brigadier General W. A. HAMMOND,

Surgeon-General U. S. Army.

Numbers 11. Report of Surg. Jonathan Letterman,

U. S. Army, Medical Director Army of the Potomac, of operations from July 4 to September 2.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
Med. Director's Office, Camp near Falmouth, Va., March 1, 1863.

GENERAL: In compliance with the directions contained in your communication of January 20, 1863, I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the medical department of this army from July 4, 1862, to November 7, 1862, viz:

In obedience to orders from the War Department, dated June 23, 1862, I reported on the 1st day of July following to General McClellan at Haxall's Landing, on the James River, for duty as medical director of the Army of the Potomac, and after the arrival of the army at Harrison's Landing was placed on duty as such on the 4th day of that month.

I attempted on the 28th of the previous month to report to the commanding general from the White House on the Pamunkey River, but was prevented from doing so by the movements of the army, and was compelled to proceed by way of Fortress Monroe and the James River to his headquarters. The change which was taking place in the position of the army when I left the White House rendered it necessary that the medical supplies and the transport for the wounded and sick should also be sent up the James River to meet the wants of the army. Upon inquiry, not ascertaining that any orders had been issued in the case, I assumed the authority, and directed Assistant Surgeon Alexander, U. S. Army, the medical purveyor, and Assistant Surgeon Dunster, U. S. Army, the medical director of transportation, to proceed up that river with their supplies and vessels with all possible dispatch. They reached Harrison's Landing in time to be of the greatest service.

The army when it reached Harrison's Landing was greatly exhausted.

The malaria from the borders of the Chickahominy and from the swamps throughout the Peninsula to which it had been so freely exposed now began to manifest its baneful effects upon the health of the men. In addition to this the troops, just previous to their arrival at this point, had been marching and fighting for seven days and nights in a country abounding in pestilential swamps and traversed by streams greatly swollen by the heavy rains, which made that region almost a Sarbonean bog. The labors of the troops had been excessive, the excitement intense. They were called upon to subsist upon a scanty supply of food, and but little time even to prepare the meager allowance. They had little time for sleep, and even when the chance presented itself it was to lie in the rain and mud, with the expectation of being called to arms at any moment. The marching and fighting