HDQRS. ARMY AND DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
New Berne, N. C., February 20, 1864.

Major General B. F. BUTLER,

Commanding Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of the 17th, and to state that on the same day I addressed you I wrote General Pickett, giving him a list of loyal North Carolinians who had enlisted in the Second North Carolina Regiment, and demanded they should be treated as prisoners of war. I will write again as indicated by you.

Very respectfully your obedient servant,

JOHN J. PECK,

Major-General.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA,
Fort Monroe, February 20, 1864.

Major General JOHN J. PECK,

North Carolina:

GENERAL: I have received the inclosed from Admiral Lee. Of course if you desire to sink the light boats for obstructions in the river, sink them, because I do [not] mean to cripple you or to interfere with your judgment as to means of defense; but I believe Plymouth is as safe as Fortress Monroe, provided you keep from being surprised. I don't believe in the iron-clad arrangement, and if you cannot deal with her from the point we visited together with your 200-pounder Parrott I shall be very much surprised. I do not think your danger, if any, lies there. The possibility of capture lies in this, or at least this is the way I should undertake to capture Plymouth if I had that iron-clad and was at Halifax: I should get plenty of barges and launches and come floating silently down in the night, land just above your obstructions, and seize your fort with the 200-pounder Parrott before your sleepy sentinel woke up, and then bring down my iron-clad, keeping your navy below by means of your fort and Parrott.

At Halifax the rebels are preparing a sort of naval flotilla of barges, and I [have] no doubt for this purpose. "Forewarned, forearmed. " I would suggest one of your smallest and quickest steam-boats above the obstructions far enough to give the alarm, with a wide-awake man on board.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

U. S. FLAG-SHIP MINNESOTA,

Off Newport News, Va., February 20, 1864.

Major General B. F. BUTLER,

Commanding Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina:

GENERAL: I am informed by Lieutenant-Commander Flusser, U. S. steamer Miami, that General Peck desires the senior naval officer at Plymouth to sink the two light boats now there in the opening in