to report that about 2.30 p.m. on the 19th instant, while with the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, and being hotly engaged with the enemy at a point about 3 miles north of Crawfish Spring, on a line west of near Chickamauga Creek, and east of and parallel to the La Fayette road, leading to Chattanooga, I received an order to immediately report to Brigadier-General Carlin, commanding brigade.

Upon reporting, General Carlin directed me to at once assume command of the Eighty-first Indiana Volunteers, of his brigade. I immediately obeyed the order, and, upon assuming command, found the regiment (Eighty-first Indiana Volunteers) lying about 50 yards in rear of and supporting the Second Minnesota Battery, the regiment not yet having engaged the enemy. The regiment then numbered in fighting men present for duty, 15 officers and 240 enlisted men. About five minutes thereafter I received and order in person from Brigadier-General Davis, commanding division, to move my command about 200 yards to the right and front of the Second Minnesota Battery and support a regiment there severely engaged with the enemy, saying at the time he thought it was the thirty-eighth Illinois Volunteers. Upon taking position, the right resting behind and shielded by a point of timber with heavy undergrowth, the left resting on the crest of and being covered by a slight elevation, I had discovered a regiment (Seventeenth Kentucky Volunteers) to my right and a little to my front slowly giving way to the right, and steadily contesting the ground under a most withering fire from a very heavy column of the enemy briskly advancing and not over 300 yards distant. We immediately opened a well-directed fire, first by volley and then by file, causing the enemy to recoil and give way in much confusion., trebly relieving the regiment to our right. The firing had not yet ceased when a large body of the enemy was seen moving to our left, and soon attacked the Second and Third Brigades of Davis' division. The enemy in our front again took courage and advanced upon our position, but, being shattered, was easily repulsed. The brigades to our left and the Second Minnesota Battery, together with the Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteers, immediately joining the Eighty-first Indiana on the left, though most stubbornly and bravely resisting the terrible onsets of most overwhelming numbers, were driven from their position, leaving the Eighty-first Indiana entirely without support on the left. I had in the mean time made a partial change of front to the rear by throwing back the left wing of the regiment, and continued our fire, somewhat enfilading the lines of the enemy and partially checking his farther progress.

About this time a vigorous attack was made on our front and right, causing the Seventeenth Kentucky to farther withdraw.,

The Eighty-first Indiana Volunteers, owing to the admirable position occupied, was not suffering very greatly, but the position was so flanked as to endanger my entire command, exposing it to capture. It was then withdrawn in good order about 200 yards to a thin curtain of timber covering the road. After again halting and reopening fire, I was informed by an officer that 50 yards to our rear and across the road was a fieldwork that had been hastily constructed of rails. I accordingly faced the regiment about and took position within the works, when we again opened and continued a most galling and deadly fire upon the enemy, who had advanced within short range, and after long and hard fighting he was dislodged from his position