for which I was not responsible]. I respectfully, claim that being within a few miles of the rest of the corps and of Petersburg I had a right to expect that if this division was needed at a particular point, officers who had been on the ground and knew the positions would be sent to conduct the division to its place, and that it would not have been left to find its own and in any doubt as to the proper road.

FRANCIS C. BARLOW,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Division.

[Ninth indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS SECOND ARMY CORPS, July 3, 1864.

Respectfully returned.

The original order of march for General Barlow fixed his position for the night. He was directed to follow General Gibbon's division. At another point on the route he was subsequently directed to take an intermediate road until the roads met at Old Court-House. There was no order or reason for General Barlow to stop at Old Court-House except to prevent interference with the divisions which he was to follow. Captain Bird, of General Barlow's staff, was a witness that under a subsequent order of General Grant these two divisions did not reach Old Court-House, but had turned off toward Petersburg before getting there. Colonel Morgan gives the substance of the second order if not the language. If Captain Driver gave General Barlow any other order in the name of the major-general commanding, General Barlow will have to prove it by Captain Driver, for there was no other order authorized but the written order which he took. The very tenor of the order and the lines drawn on the map sent to General Barlow should show for themselves that there was no intention to stop at Old Court-House, except so far as to prevent interference with the Second and Third Divisions. Next, General Barlow got an order from General Grant directing him to proceed at once to Petersburg. That order ought to have been sufficient to take him there and it was not necessary that staff officers should be sent to conduct him, for his own staff officers knew the road as well as any that the corps commander could send him. One of them [Captain Marlin] had been over the ground, and the firing was a good guide. No other orders were given that day by General Hancock in reference to the route. Each division commander had the same means of ascertaining the road to Petersburg and they all found their way there sufficiently early except General Barlow. After the Second and Third Divisions were massed at Petersburg a staff officer was sent to General Barlow to hunt him up, and the reason that he was not found was that he had taken the wrong road and marched from Petersburg instead of toward it. Division commanders must not expect at every turn of the road to find a staff officer from corps headquarters to indicate the direction when they have written orders indicating their march. But it was a clear case that if General Barlow had an order to halt at Old Court-House, which required him to wait for a staff officer to give him further orders, he should either have remained there and waited for such orders, or at least not have taken the wrong road when the right one was clear and in the direction of Petersburg. But it appears that General Barlow got an order from General Grant before reaching