Many of the men on the retreat filled their cartridge-boxes out of the boxes of the dead, and many fired as often as twenty times.

The report of the killed, wounded, and missing has been sent in.*

Respectfully, &c.

CHAS. MUELLER,

Lieutenant Colonel, Commanding One hundred and seventh Ohio Vol. Inft.

ACTING ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL,

Second Brigade, First Division, Eleventh Army Corps.

Numbers 250. Report of Brigadier General Adolph von Steinwehr, U. S. Army, commanding Second Division.

STEVENS' FARM, VA., May 8, 1863.

GENERAL: I have the honor to forward the following report of the part taken by my division in the action on the evening of May 2:

On the 30th ultimo, we arrived near Dowdall's Tavern, about 2 miles west of Chancellorsville. This tavern is situated on the Plank road, which runs in an easterly direction toward Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. It is surrounded by undulating fields, which are seamed on three sides by heavy timber, but slope down at the west side toward open ground traversed by a small brook. Upon these fields your ordered me to take position. I ordered the First Brigade, Colonel Adolphus Buschbeck, to occupy the fields south of the road, and the Second Brigade, General Francis C. Barlow, those north of it. My division was to be considered as a reserve to the First and Third Divisions, which were placed in position west of us.

At about 4 p. m. on May 2, your ordered me to send the Second Brigade, General F. C. Barlow commanding, to support the right wing of General Sickles' corps, then engaged with the enemy. The brigade immediately started, and, accompanied by yourself and myself, reached the right wing of General Birney's division (of General Sickles' corps)in about an hour's time. We found General Birney's sharpshooters skirmishing with the enemy, and, as no engagement was imminent, I returned to the First Brigade, near Dowdall's.

Soon I heard heavy firing in that direction, which showed that a strong attack was made upon our corps. When I arrived upon the field, I found Colonel A. Buschbeck, with three regiments of his brigade (the Twenty-seventh and Seventy-third Pennsylvania and One hundred and fifty-fourth New York Volunteers), still occupying the same ground near the tavern, and defending this position with great firmness and gallantry. The fourth regiment (the Twenty-ninth New York) he had sent to the north side of the road, to fill the place lately occupied by the Second Brigade before its detachment.

The attack of the enemy was very powerful. They emerged in close columns from the woods, and had thrown the First and Third Divisions, which retired toward Chancellorsville, into great confusion. Colonel Buschbeck succeeded in checking the progress of the enemy, and I directed him to hold his position as long as possible.

The men fought with great determination and courage. Soon, however, the enemy gained both wings of the brigade, and the enfilading fire which was now opened upon this small force, and which killed and

---------------

* Embodied in revised statement, p. 182.

---------------