there back. This may take
more force than you now have.

From that point all North Carolina roads can be made useless to the
enemy, without keeping up communications with the rear.

Hoping to hear soon of your junction with the forces from
Wilmington and Newborn, I remain, very respectfully, your obedient
servant,

U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN THE FIELD,
COX'S BRIGADE, NEUSE RIVER, NORTH CAROLINA, March 22, 1865

Lieutenant-General U. S. GRANT, Commander-in-Chief, City Point,
Virginia.

GENERAL: I wrote you from Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Tuesday,
the 14th instant, that I was all ready to start for Goldsboro', to
which point I had also ordered General Schofield, from Newborn, and
General Terry, from Wilmington. I knew that General Jos. Johnston
was supreme in command against me, and that he would have time to
concentrate a respectable army to oppose the last stage of this
march. Accordingly, General Slocum was ordered to send his main
supply-train, under escort of two divisions, straight for
Bentonsville, while he, with his other four divisions,
disencumbered of all unnecessary wagons, should march toward
Raleigh, by way of threat, as far as Averysboro'. General Howard,
in like manner, sent his trains with the Seventeenth Corps, well to
the right, and, with the four divisions of the Fifteenth Corps,
took roads which would enable him to come promptly to the exposed
left flank. We started on the 16th, but again the rains set in,
and the roads, already bad enough, became horrible.

On Tuesday, the 16th, General Slocum found Hardee's army, from
Charleston, which had retreated before us from Cheraw, in position
across the narrow, swampy neck between Cape Fear and North Rivers,
where the road branches off to Goldsboro'. There a pretty severe
fight occurred, in which General Slocum's troops carried handsomely
the advanced line, held by a South Carolina brigade, commanded by a
Colonel Butler. Its Commander, Colonel Rhett, of Fort Sumter
notoriety, with one of his staff, had the night before been
captured, by Kilpatrick's scouts, from his very skirmish-line. The
next morning Hardee was found gone, and was pursued through and
beyond Averysboro'. General Slocum buried one hundred and eight
dead rebels, and captured and destroyed three guns. Some eighty
wounded rebels were left in our hands, and, after dressing their
wounds, we left them in a