Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: January 20, 1863

Headquarters Outpost.

First Brigade, Second Kanawha Division,

January 20, 1863.

Sir: — I am instructed by General Scammon to inform Major-General Jones through you that he regards his sending two flags of truce at the same time by different routes to our outposts upon the same business, viz., the admission of ladies into our lines, as using the flag for a purpose as obvious as it is improper, and that such an abuse of it is not to be permitted.

Not to subject the lady in your charge to hardship, she will be admitted into our lines on the representation of Lieutenant Norvell that she is the wife of a citizen loyal to the United States.

R. B. Hayes,

Colonel Twenty-third Regiment, O. V. I.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 391