Numbers 128.

Report of Colonel Joseph Conrad, Fifteenth Missouri Infantry.

HDQRS. FIFTEENTH REGIMENT MISSOURI INFANTRY,
Camp at Chattanooga, September 30, 1863.

SIR: I have the honor to respectfully report the movements and active part of this regiment in the late campaign and battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863.

After the fall of Chattanooga we marched with the Twentieth Army Corps, to which this regiment belongs, through the Valley Head Pass, 45 miles south of Chattanooga, across Lookout Mountain range, and arrived on the 11th September at Alpine, a little village about 20 miles east [northwest] of Rome, Ga.

On the 13th we received orders to fall back to the rest of the army. We had to make the same way again over the Lookout Mountain. We arrived September 16 at McLemore's Cove, where our corps formed connection with the Fourteenth Army Corps.

On the 17th report came in that the enemy was approaching. Our corps was drawn in line of battle. I was ordered with my regiment to hold Stevens' Gap at all circumstances. My regiment was stationed there until September 18 at 9 a.m.,. when we moved about 5 miles farther on to McLemore's Cove. Moved again that night at 10 p.m. to Pond Spring. 18 miles south of Chattanooga, where we arrived at 2 a.m., on the 19th.

At 9 a.m., of the 19th we heard heavy cannonading to our left. The battle had commenced. We left camp at 11 o'clock, marched at double-quick to Crawfish Spring, and took position about 1 mile

farther in the woods, but had to move again at double-quick to Gordon's Mills, where we took position in line of battle, my regiment on the right of Battery G, First Missouri Artillery, to support said battery. Here we lay for an hour, but he firing on the right of our line getting heavier, and two brigades under General Woods being in confusion, we were moved again at double-quick to the battle-field, where the Second and Fifteenth Missouri were drawn up in line of battle at the edge of the timber, on the right of Battery G, First Missouri Artillery, under a most appalling fire of the enemy, as a support of the Third Brigade of our division. We laid in this position all night in much discomfort, as the cold was very severe and fires were not allowed.

Before daylight next morning, September 20, the enemy having changed position, we also changed our line. Our brigade was marched about a mile to the rear and right, General Sheridan's division holding the extreme right and our brigade the extreme right of General Sheridan's division. Companies I and K of my regiment were thrown out as skirmishers. We held this position until about 12 o'clock, when our brigade was relieved by the Third Brigade of our division. We were marched about a half a mile farther to the left, took position on a side-hill stubble-field in column of regiments at company distance, facing a belt of woods at the foot of the hill. We were hardly in position when the enemy, after a fruitless attempt to break our left and center, massed his troops on our right and broke two brigades to our left.

At this critical point we received orders to charge on the enemy with the point of the bayonet. Nobly was the order carried out. The men went in good order in the woods in column of regiments;