GENERAL: Please impress your officers and men with the importance of making a rush when they once start to take a position as that occupied by the enemy yesterday. If the troops once started rush forward till the point is carried, the loss will be trifling; whereas, if they hesitate, the enemy gets courage, or being behind a comparatively sheltered position will fight the harder. Besides, if the assaulting party once loses courage and falters, he will not find courage, probably, to make a renewed effort. The men should therefore be cautioned before they start at such a work, and told what they are to do, and the importance and great safety of doing it _with a rush_. (Signed) J. LONGSTREET, Lieut. Gen’l. The bastion against which the assault was specially directed, fronted to the north and was almost finished. Its relief was about 13 feet, which added to the depth of the ditch, say 7 feet, made a distance of 20 feet from the bottom of the ditch to the interior crest. This and the steepness of the slope presented grave difficulties to the assailants. Add to them the dampness of the morning, the nature of the soil, the obstacles placed in front of the ditch and the absence of scaling ladders, and the success of the storming party was, in advance, most uncertain. The columns formed by Longstreet were of his best men, and consisted of three brigades of Gen. McLaw’s division: one of Georgians under Gen. Wofford, one of Mississippians under Gen. Humphrey, and the third composed of Generals Anderson’s and Bryant’s brigades, South Carolinians and Georgians, with others. They went forward as ordered, “with a rush”--impetuously, and with a yell. First they encountered the abattis which broke their lines; then the telegraph wires tripped up and threw headlong whole companies. In their confusion, Lieut. Benjamin opened upon them with canister from his triple-shotted guns, and at the same time, portions of Gen. Hascall’s division, placed the night before by Gen. Ferrero on the flanks of the fort, made a cross fire upon the assailants. Although many of them fell because of the entanglements, the weight of the column forced its advance forward. In two or three minutes a crowd plunged into the ditch, and a few tried to reach the parapet. The raking shot from the fort still poured swiftly down upon them. Shells lighted in hand and tossed by Lieutenant Benjamin into the struggling mass, helped in the work of its destruction.