the enemy suffered heavily, we succeeded in reaching the river, which we crossed in good order.

From the 11th to the 15th instant, my command was employed in picketing and in guarding the flank and rear of the army. On the afternoon of the 15th, the brigade being posted on the Bull Run battle-ground, I detailed Major Kidd, with his regiment, the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, to reconnoiter the position and strength of the enemy in the vicinity of Gainesville. The reconnaissance was entirely satisfactory and showed the enemy to be in considerable force at that point.

Sunday, the 18th instant, at 3 p. m., the entire division was ordered to move on the pike leading from Groveton to Warrenton. The First Brigade moved on the pike, the Second moved on a road to the left of and parallel to the pike. We soon encountered the enemy and drove him as far as Gainesville, where the entire command bivouacked for the night. The First Vermont Cavalry, under Colonel Sawyer, deserves great credit for the rapidity with which they forced the enemy to retire.

At daybreak on the morning of the 19th, my brigade took the advance and skirmished with the enemy's cavalry from Gainesville to Buckland. At the latter point I found him strongly posted upon the south bank of Broad Run. The position for his artillery was well chosen. After a fruitless attempt to effect a crossing in his front, I succeeded in turning his left flank so completely as to force him from his position.

Having driven him more than a mile from the stream, I threw out my pickets and ordered my men to prepare their dinner. From the inhabitants of Buckland I learned that the forces of the enemy with whom we had been engaged were commanded by General J. e. B. Stuart in person, who, at the time of our arrival at that point, was seated at the dinner-table eating, but owing to my successful advance, he was compelled to leave his dinner untouched, a circumstance not regretted by that portion of my command into whose hands it fell.

The First Brigade took the advance at this point. I was preparing to follow when information reached me that the enemy were advancing on my left from the direction of Greenwich. I had scarcely time to place my command in position to resist an attack from that direction before the enemy's skirmishers appeared. pennington's battery opened upon them, while the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, under Major Kidd, was thrown forward and deployed as skirmishers. One gun of Pennington's battery, supported by the First Vermont Cavalry, was placed on my extreme left. The First Michigan Cavalry, under Major Brewer, acted as a reserve and as a support for the remaining five guns of the battery. The Fifth Michigan Cavalry, under Colonel Alger, and the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, under Colonel Mann, were engaged in the woods on my right. At first I was under the impression that the skirmishers of the enemy were composed of dismounted cavalry, but later developments convinced me that it was a very superior force of infantry that now confronted me.

After completing his dispositions for attack the enemy advanced upon me; in doing so exposed a line of infantry more than a mile in extent, and at the same time he opened a heavy fire upon me from his artillery. Pennington's battery, aided by the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, poured a destructive fire upon the enemy as he advanced, but failed to force him back. A desperate effort was made to capture