On the 7th of May the storm subsided, and we put to sea, Mr. Chase to the south, on his proposed tour as far as New Orleans, and I for James River.  I reached Fortress Monroe on the 8th, and thence telegraphed my arrival to General Grant, asking for orders.  I found at Fortress Monroe a dispatch from General Halleck, professing great friendship, and inviting me to accept his hospitality at Richmond.  I answered by a cipher-dispatch that I had seen his dispatch to Mr. Stanton, of April 26th, embraced in the second bulletin, which I regarded as insulting, declined his hospitality, and added that I preferred we should not meet as I passed through Richmond.  I thence proceeded to City Point in the Russia, and on to Manchester, opposite Richmond, via Petersburg, by rail.  I found that both wings of the army had arrived from Raleigh, and were in camp in and around Manchester, whence I again telegraphed General Grant, an the 9th of May, for orders, and also reported my arrival to General Halleck by letter.  I found that General Halleck had ordered General Davis’s corps (the Fourteenth) for review by himself.  This I forbade.  All the army knew of the insult that had been made me by the Secretary of War and General Halleck, and watched me closely to see if I would tamely submit.  During the 9th I made a full and complete report of all these events, from the last report made at Goldsboro’ up to date, and the next day received orders to continue the march to Alexandria, near Washington.

On the morning of the 11th we crossed the pontoon-bridge at Richmond, marched through that city, and out on the Han over Court House road, General Slocum’s left wing leading.  The right wing (General Logan) followed the next day, viz., the 12th.  Meantime, General O. O. Howard had been summoned to Washington to take charge of the new Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, and, from that time till the army was finally disbanded, General John A. Logan was in command of the right wing, and of the Army of the Tennessee.  The left wing marched through Hanover Court House, and thence took roads well to the left by Chilesburg; the Fourteenth Corps by New Market and Culpepper, Manassas, etc.; the Twentieth Corps by Spotsylvania Court-House and Chancellorsville.  The right wing followed the more direct road by Fredericksburg.  On my way north I endeavored to see as much of the battle-fields of the Army of the Potomac as I could, and therefore shifted from one column to the other, visiting en route Hanover Court-House, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, Dumfries, etc., reaching Alexandria during the afternoon of May 19th, and pitched my camp by the road side, about half-way between Alexandria and the Long Bridge.  During the same and next day the whole army reached Alexandria, and camped round about it; General Meade’s Army of the Potomac had possession of the camps above, opposite Washington and Georgetown.  The next day (by invitation)