those terms can be applied to serpentine mountain roads, from the turnpike. These guns were under the immediate charge of Captain P. B. Anderson, and the zeal, skill, and determination of that officer leave no doubt that they would have done great execution had the enemy ventured to call them into action. Captain Shumaker's battery, consisting of four pieces (6-pounders), one of them rifled, and one 6-pounder, under Captain Rice, was held in readiness for the front and right flank. The place occupied by these various corps you will find specified upon the map.

Our forces were all in position, when at about 8 o'clock the enemy opened a heavy fire from six pieces of different caliber, place in a field upon the right-hand side (to them) of the turnpike road, and bearing upon our and center. This number was subsequently increased by two other pieces placed ont eh opposite side of the turnpike, one near it and the other upon the rise of the hill. This fire (of round shot, spherical case, shell, and occasionally, upon our left wing, of canister) was continued with extraordinary rapidity and without intermission for upwards of four, the eight guns constituting the well-know field batteries of Howe and of Loomis.

The hill occupied by Colonel Taliaferro's brigade, incitingly exposed to all of the batteries, received the grater share of their attention, and but for the protection afforded the ditch and embankment running along its brow, and constructed under the immediate supervision of Colonel Taliaferro himself, we should doubtless have had inflicted upon us a very severe loss indeed. This fire was returned with great energy and, as the result has proved, with signal effect by the guns of Captain Shumaker and Captain Rice and by one piece detached from Captain Anderson's battery and placed upon the hill occupied by Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson. Lieutenant Massie, its proper chief, being quite indisposed, although he maintained his position near his piece, it was placed under the command of Captain Deshler, aide-de-camp to Colonel Johnson.

From the fact that the rifled gun of Captain Shumaker soon became useless to us (for the cause of this great misfortune see his own report addressed to myself), at no time could we bring more than five pieces into action to return the fire on the enemy's eight. Yet that fire was returned, and that with so much spirit and energy, as to make this artillery duel, rendered peculiarly interesting by the character of the field and its mountain surroundings, ever memorable by those who beheld it. That the casualties amount our cannoneers should have been so few is a subject of sincere congratulation, and is very much ascribe to the sound judgment of Captain Shumaker, who repeatedly changed the position of his guns when those of the enemy had obtained his range, For a minuter description of the action in this its most striking phase I take great pleasure in referring to the report of that consummately cool and skillful officer. From it you will learn why it was that our pieces, at the close of the four hours' interchange of fire, were temporarily withdrawn, inducing our friends upon our extreme left and evidently the enemy to suppose that they had been silenced.

At about 9.30 a strong column of infantry was seen to move towards left flank. Having crossed the so-called river (in fact, a shallow stream of about 20 yards in width), near the point designated ont the map by the capital latter A, it undertook to turn our position in that direction. Soon, however, it encountered a portion of the Third Arkansas Regiment, with drove it precipitately back with a destructive fire. The enemy subsequently turned two of his pieces upon this