GENERAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS, Numbers [23].
March 31, 1865-9.35 p.m.

* * * * *

I. General Ayres will immediately withdraw his division back to where it was massed yesterday near the Boydton plank road.

II. General Crawford will follow General Ayres and mass his troops behind the entrenchments near Mrs. Butler's.

III. General Griffin will immediately withdraw General Bartlett to his present position, then move back to the plank road and down it to Dinwiddie Court-House and report to General Sheridan.

IV. Captain Horrell with the escort will remain where General Griffin's headquarters now are till daybreak and then come back to the plank road bringing in all stragglers.

V. Division commanders in executing this movement, which is ordered by General Meade, [sic] to see that none of their pickets or any portion of their troops are left behind.

VI. General Ayres and General Crawford will have their troops under arms at daybreak, and the chief of artillery will have all the batteries in readiness to move.

By command of Major-General Warren:

FRED. T. LOCKE,

Brevet Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.

ORDER.] HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS,

March 31, 1865-11 p.m.

General Griffin and General Crawford will mass their divisions at the point at which this order reaches them and report their positions by the officer that brings it. A change of plan makes this necessary.

G. K. WARREN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, FIFTH CORPS,
March 31, 1865. (Received 6.10 a.m.)

Colonel FRED T. LOCKE, Asst. Adjt. General, Hdqrs. Fifth Corps:

COLONEL: I have the honor to request that the line of pickets now extending to the Dabney house may be relieved by other troops as soon as my division takes up its new position. I would relieve them by other troops of this division, but those troops now on are so well tired out (having been on picket at the last position on the Vaughan road), that I can't expect much service from them to-day, and the effective force of the division would thus be reduced.

R. B. AYRES,

Brevet Major-General, Commanding Division.

HEADQUARTERS FIFTH ARMY CORPS,
March 31, 1865-6.15 a.m.

Brevet Major-General AYRES, Commanding Second Div., Fifth Corps:

GENERAL: In reply to your dispatch just received the major-general commanding directs me [to say] that the matter of relieving the pickets will be attended [to] at once.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRED. T. LOCKE,

Brevet Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.