HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
ARMY OF THE OHIO,

Federal Point, N. C., February 14, 1865.

COMMANDING OFFICER U. S. TROOPS, 23rd ARMY CORPS,

Smithville, N. C. (debarking at Smithville):

SIR: Major-General Schofield directs that you put all the troops landing from the vessels at Smithville in camp near that place and have them prepared for active field service immediately.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. A. CAMPBELL,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
Federal Point, N. C., February 14 1865.

COMMANDING OFFICER,

Smithville, N. C.:

COLONEL: A division, or part of one, of the Twenty-third Corps will land at Smithville to-night or early in the morning. I want you at daylight in the morning to start a reconnaissance on both of the roads leading out from Smithville. Take about 300 men on the road to Fort Anderson. A smaller force will be sufficient on the other road. Push out about five or six miles, or more if practicable, and remain out the greater portion of the day. Get all the information that you can of the position, strength, movements, &c., of the enemy and of the roads and country toward Wilmington. Your reconnaissance will also serve as a diversion in favor of a movement I propose to make on this side of the river. If you need assistance during the day call on the officer commanding the troops of the Twenty-third Corps. Show him this order as your authority for doing so.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant

J. M. SCHOFIELD,

Major-General.

GENERAL TERRY'S HEADQUARTERS,

Fort Fisher, February 14, 1865.

Colonel GRANGER,

Commanding Brigade:

SIR: It is proposed to-night to move a pontoon train and a body of troops up the beach to a point about seven miles in front of the right of our present line; then to unload the pontoons, haul them by hand nearly a mile across the marsh to Myrtle Sound, and then to ferry the whole column across the sound, believed to be about 200 yards wide at the point selected for ferrying. Your brigade has been selected for the advance, preceding the pontoon train, and when the pontoon wagons have gone as far as they can to assist the engineers, of whom there will be about ten to each pontoon, in unloading the pontoons, and then to haul them by a route which will be designated to Myrtle Sound. You will before starting divide your command into thirty parties, of about fifty men each, properly commanded, and when the unloading begins will assign each party to a pontoon, with orders, to stay with it till relieved. The officer in command of each party will be held