during the day, it strongly fortified itself by means of rifle-pits and abatis.

On the morning of the 3rd, the whole corps was ordered around more to the right, where it was suspected the main attack would be made. The brigade was placed in line of battle, and ordered to hold the position at all hazards, to do which the more certainly the brigade again secured itself by making rifle-pits and abatis.

In this position the brigade remained until about 2 o'clock on the morning of the 6th instant, when it, with the division, which had the honor of forming the rear guard to the army on its return, gradually and cautiously fell back, by forming alternate lines of battle with the other brigades, to the United States Ford, on the Rappahannock, which it crossed in safety about 8 a.m., after the whole army had preceded it by means of pontoon bridges. Notwithstanding the bad state of the roads, the whole brigade was safely marched back to its old camp near Falmouth, Va., before dark on the evening of the 6th instant, in good spirits, and ready to move again at short notice whenever the commanding general may direct.

After an absence of 9 days, during which both officers and men were either marching or constantly on the alert in the trenches, and although it was not their fortune to participate in the heaviest part of the fighting, the part assigned them was most important, and had the enemy succeeded in getting up to our lines, the safety of the whole army would have depended upon them. This they knew and felt, and were fully resolved to hold the position assigned them to the last extremity, and, I have no doubt, would, had the necessity arisen; but the enemy were repulsed in their oft-repeated attempts before they could reach our lines, and therefore I am happy to be able to report but very few casualties, which mostly occurred by the random shots of the enemy, to which we were very much exposed.

Where all performed their duty so well, and constantly under the eye of the division commander, I feel unable to discriminate further than to say that all, both officers and men, did their duty well.

To each of my staff-Lieutenant [Frank M.] Kelley, adjutant-general, and Captain [Eugene A.] Nash, assistant inspector-general, Forty-fourth New York Volunteers, and Lieutenant Wallace Jewett, aide-de-camp, Sixteenth Michigan Volunteers-I feel under many obligations for the promptness with which they carried out my orders. Accompanying I submit the a nominal and tabular list of killed, wounded, and missing.*

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. B. W. STOCKTON,

Colonel, Commanding 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, 5th Army Corps.

Captain C. B. MERVINE, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 174. Report of Lieutenant Colonel Nelson B. Bartram, Seventeenth New York Infantry.

HDQRS. 17TH NEW YORK STATE VOLS., May 7, 1863.

LIEUTENANT: In compliance with orders received this evening, I have the honor to submit the following brief report of the operations of this regiment during the three days' fighting near Chancellorsville: On Friday, May 1, this regiment with the brigade, marched down

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*Embodied in revised a statement, p. 180.

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