HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
January 23, 1865-10.30 p. m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

I have notified Colonel Duane to have ready 500 feet of bridging, with wagons and mules, subject to your orders. Will you require any engineer troops to accompany the train? If so, how many companies? I should think two would be ample.

GEO. G. MEADE,

Major-General.

CITY POINT, VA., January 23, 1865-11.30 a. m.

Brigadier General D. H. RUCKER,

Chief Quartermaster:

The steamer Saint Cloud left yesterday; will be ordered from Fort Monroe to Washington. The steamers Alliance, City of Bath, Vidette, Detroit, and Tillie will be discharged during the next twenty-four hours and ordered to Washington. There are no others in this river. The medical department has no sea-going in the river at all. The hospital department of the Army of the Potomac has only the State of Maine, now present; that of the Army of the James has the George Washington, Hero of Jersey, and the Thomas Powel. I can use any of these boats when an emergency demands, but they are not sea-going boats. It is 10 a. m., and no sign yet at Fort Monroe of either the Washington or Baltimore mail-boats of the day before. Please have the Potomac carefully watched. It is reported that the Express is sunk forty miles below Washington.

R. INGALLS,

Brigadier-General.

CITY POINT, January 23, 1865-4 p. m.

(Received 4.45 p. m.)

Major General M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General:

We are nearly out of coal; there is hardly any at Fort Monroe for our use. I beg you will order the quantity estimated for by the chief quartermaster at the depot on the 18th instant. Shipments should be made immediately. We should not be out of coal at this season.

R. INGAGLLS,

Brigadier-General and Quartermaster.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Numbers 17.
City Point, Va., January 23, 1865.

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II. Major General John Gibbon, commanding Army of the James, will immediately forward to Major-General Terry, at Fort Fisher, fifty-six mule teams, and the caissons, wagons, and horses of Battery E, Third U. S. Artillery, and the Sixteenth New York Independent Battery, now here and one company of cavalry, numbering at least fifty men, for duty as orderlies and couriers.

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By command of Lieutenant-General Grant:

E. S. PARKER,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.