HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Friday, July 8, 1864.

[General HANCOCK:]

DEAR GENERAL: An article in the New York Tribune of the 27th ultimo was so unjust to you in one of its charges that I intended to have expressed to you my regret long since, but finally deemed it best to wait for the return of the correspondent (Mr. Kent), who, from what I know of him, would be most anxious to repair any error into which he had been led by mistake. He has been ordered not to come back, and so, unable to have justice done in that manner, I have only to express my regrets that he should have been so misinformed about your having refused to co-operate in any attack. No one who knows you, general, would ever bring a charge of that kind against you, and that the charge should have been made in an article intended to do justice to the Eighteenth Corps is to me, as I have before stated, a matter of great regret.

Yours, very truly,
WM. F. SMITH.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, July 8, 1864.

Colonel BURTON:

Colonel Abbot informs me that he has been called upon for six more 8-inch mortars for your front. Let me know as soon as possible the necessity for this that I may give the orders for them.

HENRY J. HUNT,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS, July 8, 1864.

Brigadier-General HUNT,
Chief of Artillery, Headquarters Army of the Potomac:

The mortars are required to enable us to silence a new battery of the enemy in front of General Turner's center that cannot be reached by horizontal fire or by the Coehorns. The 8-inch mortars now in position must remain so.

H. S. BURTON,

Colonel.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, July 8, 1864-8.10 a. m.

Colonel BURTON:

I have ordered up the mortars and ammunition on your statement.

HENRY J. HUNT,
Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS, July 8, 1864-12 p. m.

General STANNARD:

GENERAL: General Smith desires you to have a staff officer in your lines during the night to see that one-half of your troops are kept