Lieutenant General U. S. Grant,
City Point:

Since my letter of this morning I have official reports from General Howard, commanding Right Wing. He crossed from Beaufort Island on Saturday, the 14th, by Port Royal Ferry to the mainland with the Seventeenth Corps, General Blair, and marched for Pocotaligo. They encountered the enemy near Garden's Corners, but soon outflanked him, and followed, dislodging him from position to position, till he took refuge in a strong fort at Pocotaligo. This is described as a well constructed, enclosed work, pierced for twenty-four guns, and the approaches covered by the peculiar salt marsh points that guard this coast. Night overtook the command there, and Sunday morning the enemy was gone. Howard expresses satisfaction with this, as it was Sunday, and it saved him an assault which might have cost him some valuable lives. As it was, he lost Lieutenant Chandler, of General Leggett's staff, killed, and Captain Kellogg, of General Giles A. Smith's staff, wounded. He writes that 8 or 10 will cover his loss. He reports guns captured at Garden's Corners. We are therefore now in possession of good high ground on the railroad at Pocotaligo, with a good road back twenty-five miles to Beaufort. I will order Howard to forage toward Charleston. I will proceed to get my army and trains across, and can start north the moment I can get my wagons loaded. The weather at sea has been so stormy that vessels are behind, and it has been touch and go to get daily food. I have ordered Slocum to push a division up to Hardeeville and Purysburg, and think I can use the Savannah River up to that point. We are hard at work corduroying the roads across the rice fields by the Union Causeway. The Secretary told me I would surely receive 4,000 men from Baltimore to garrison Savannah. They are not heard of here yet.