JULY 30, 1864 - 11.30 p.m.

Major-General MEADE:

The only answer I am able to make to your dispatch of 11.25 is to give you following dispatch from General Grant to General Butler:

Direct General Ord to send to this place his heavy artillery, or such of it as can be dispensed with and that cannot be rapidly moved in case of necessity.

General Grant will return here about 4 o'clock to-morrow evening.

T. S. BOWERS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CITY POINT, VA., July 30, 1864 - 12 p. m.

(Received 7 a. m. 31st.)

Brigadier General M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General:

Please order all available transports to this place suitable for the transportation of cavalry and infantry, not otherwise employed.

RUFUS INGALLS,

Brigadier-General and Chief Quartermaster.

CITY POINT, July 30, 1864.

General PATRICK:

I am working hard to get all the prisoners here ready to forward to-morrow morning. Can the prisoners received at headquarters Army of the Potomac be here in the morning? If so, we will have the arrangements perfected. Among those examined, Thomas Powell, Thirty-fourth North Carolina, Scales' brigade, claims to be a deserter; says he swam the river night before last, leaving his brigade near Swift Creek. He says that about a month ago, then being employed at Wolmington, N. C., he knows that an expedition consisting of three steamers and 1,600 men, with 30,000 stand of arms, left Wilmington for the purpose of liberating the rebel prisoners at Point Lookout. I look upon the man with suspicion on account of some great improbabilities in his story, which I think is known to General Butler, as the man came from him; I will mention it to General Grant. For General Humhpreys' information I add that the Twentieth South, Carolina Regiment, lately come from the south, was put into Kerhaw's old brigade, and at Cold Harbor was commanded by Lawrence M. Keitt, who was killed there.

Respectfully,

GEORGE H. SHARPE,

Colonel, &c.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, OFFICE OF PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL,
July 30, 1864.

Colonel SHARPE,

City Point:

The engagement has ended. There is no necessity for your returning here. Nothing gained except 200 prisoners from Evans' brigade.

J. McENTEE,

Captain, &c.