Very respectfully, your obedient servant, U.S.GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, January 81, 1865.
Major-General J.M.SCHOFIELD, commanding army of the Ohio.
GENERAL: I have requested by telegraph that, for present purposes, North Carolina be erected into a department, and that you be placed in command of it, subject to Major-General Sherman's orders.

Of course, you will receive orders from me direct until such time as General Sherman gets within communicating distance of you.

This obviates the necessity of my publishing the order which I informed you would meet you at Fortress Monroe.

If the order referred to should not be published from the Adjutant-General's office, you will read these instructions as your authority to assume command of all the troops in North Carolina, dating all official communications, "Headquarters Army of the Ohio." Your headquarters will be in the field, and with the portion of the army where you feel yourself most needed.

In the first move you will go to Cape Fear River.
Your movements are intended as cooperative with Sherman's movement through the States of South and North Carolina.