The field officers of the Forty-seventh New York are Colonel

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Brown? [?], Lieutenant-Colonel [George] Van Brunt, and Major [David A.] Allen.

I remain, captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ED. C. ANDERSON, JR.,

Major Twenty-fourth Georgia Battalion.

Captain GEORGE A. MERCER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

JULY 10, 1863.-Engagement at Willstown Bluff, Pon River, S. C.

REPORTS.

Numbers 1.-Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, First South Carolina Colored Infantry.

Numbers 2.-Colonel H. K. Aiken, Sixth South Carolina Cavalry, commanding Second Military District.

Numbers 3.-Lieutenant Thomas G. White, Palmetto, Battalion (South Carolina) Light Artillery.

Numbers 4.-Captain George H. Walter, Washington (South Carolina) Artillery.

Numbers 1. Report of Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, First South Carolina Colored Infantry.

ON BOARD STEAMER JOHN ADAMS,

July 11, 1863.

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit a report of an expedition up the South Edisto River, undertaken with you consent and that of General Gillmore, commanding department.

I left Beaufort on the afternoon of the 9th, with the armed steamer John Adams, the transport Enoch Dean, and the small tug Governor Milton. I had with me 250 officers and men of my regiment and a section of the First Connecticut Battery, under command of Lieutenant Clinton.

By 4 o'clock the next morning we anchored before Willstown, 20 miles up the river, and engaged a three-gun filed battery there stationed. After 3 shots they ceased firing, and, landing with Lieutenant [James B.] West and 30 men, I took possession of the bluff, where the clothing, equipments, and breakfast fires left behind betrayed a very hasty departure. This bluff affords the key to the river, and we held it all day, until sunset, though with constant skirmishing between my pickets and those of the enemy.

We found, as we expected, a row of spiels across the river at Willstown, and a prisoner, whom we had taken, affected great terror of torpedoes. None, however, appeared, and the able engineering of Captain [Charles T.] Trowbridge in three hours effected a passage for the two small vessels. This was too late for the tide, and we were obliged to wait till noon before ascending farther. At the first effort to ascend with the flood tide, the Governor Milton went aground, and the Dean, going about a mile farther, had another engagement with the same battery, and again drove it back. She also running