SPECIAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Numbers 372.
Washington, October 29, 1864.

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17. Brigadier General E. A. Wild, U. S. Volunteers, is hereby relieved from duty as commandant of the recruiting rendezvous established by General Orders, Numbers 227, July 9, 1864, from this office, at Fort Monroe, Va., and will report for duty to Major-General Butler, commanding Department of Virginia and North Carolina.

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By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

FORT BRADY, VA., October 29, 1864.

Colonel H. L. ABBOT,

Commanding Siege Artillery:

COLONEL: I have the honor to report that the enemy commenced to fire quite rapidly at the canal this morning. Opened with the 4.5-inch gun and soon caused them to slacken their fire. Was at your headquarters much during the afternoon. Mr. Woodruff informs me that they shelled but little after I left. Just now, 9 p. m., they are making considerable noise. In fact, most of their practice is between dark and daylight.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. H. PIERCE,

Captain, First Connecticut Artillery.

FORT MONROE, October 29, 1864.

(Received 11.35 p. m.)

Major-General MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General:

When your dispatch was received the Atlantic and Baltic has gone to Point Lookout for sick prisoners. I will transfer these prisoners to other boats when they arrive here. The boats were taken as the only safe boats in the service fit to convey sick and wounded soldiers of the United States who have been languishing in prisons for many months. They are the only boats fit for that purpose as hospital boats on the coast in the November storms. The soldiers of the United States sick and wounded in the comfortable hospital at Fort Monroe General Butler thought could wait there before they were transported to New York, and the surgeons in charge go with them to that city on a pleasure trip, better than could our soldier, sick, emaciated, and wounded, stay in a filthy Southern prison and die for want of this transportation, which, in fact, is not employed more than half the time. If our soldiers die in foreign prisons for want of this transportation their friends and countrymen must hold the Surgeon-General responsible, and not General Butler, for inhumanity. There are plenty of boats that can run to New York with safety.

By command of Major General B. F. Butler:

R. C. WEBSTER,

Colonel and Quartermaster.