Permit me to say that the hours you may fix upon for this will be agreeable to me, and the same privilege will be extended to such parties as you may wish to send out on the same duty without further application.
U.S.GRANT, Lieut.-General.
Lee acceded to this; but delays in transmitting the correspondence brought it to the 7th of June--forty-eight hours after it commenced -- before parties were got out to collect the men left upon the field.
In the meantime all but two of the wounded had died.

And I wrote to Lee: COLD HARBOR, VA., June 7, 1864.

10.30 A.M.
GEN.

R.E.LEE, Commanding Army of N.Va.
I regret that your note of seven P.M.yesterday should have been received at the nearest corps headquarters, to where it was delivered, after the hour which had been given for the removal of the dead and wounded had expired; 10.45 P.M.was the hour at which it was received at corps headquarters, and between eleven and twelve it reached my headquarters.

As a consequence, it was not understood by the troops of this army that there was a cessation of hostilities for the purpose of collecting the dead and wounded, and none were collected.