Numbers 112.

Reports of Brigadier General John W. Geary, U. S. Army, commanding Second Division, Twelfth Army corps, with congratulatory orders.

HDQRS. SECOND DIVISION, TWELFTH ARMY CORPS,
Wauhatchie, Tennessee, December 15, 1863.

GENERAL; I have the honor to submit to Major-General Hooker commanding, the following report of the movements of my command in the campaign commencing on the 24th of November and terminating on the 1st of December, 1863, embracing the victorious actions on Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and on Taylor's Ridge, at Ringgold, Ga.:

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN

At 3 o'clock on the morning of the 24th of November, I received the order of Major-General Hooker to cross Lookout Creek and to assault Lookout Mountain, marching down the valley and sweeping every rebel from it.

Pursuant to your orders of the 22nd November, my lines had been extended so as to cover the entire position previously maintained by the Eleventh Corps and by my own command, the line extending from the confluence of Lookout Creek and the Tennessee River on the left to the top of Raccoon Mountain on the right, the situation gained by the important movement of General Hooker on the 28th of October, and the action of the same night, in which a portion of this division participated, at Wauhatchie.

For the proper protection of these defenses, I disposed 200 of my grand guards, from various regiments of my First Brigade, along the creek from Wauhatchie Junction to the left of the Kelley's Ferry road, joined by the Twenty-ninth Ohio, Colonel W. T. Fitch, and seven companies of the Fifth Ohio, Colonel J. H. Patrick, on the left, and 130 of the grand guards on the right, with the One hundred and ninth Pennsylvania, Captain F. L. Gimber, and the Seventy-eighth New York, Lieutenant Colonel H. Hammerstein, in reserve on the right. The grand guards were under the supervision of Lieutenant Colonel E. Powell, Sixty-sixth Ohio Volunteers.

I moved my command, supplied with one day's rations and full complement of ammunition on persons of the men, in light marching order at daylight to Wauhatchie railroad junction, where, pursuant to your orders, Brigadier General W. C. Whitaker reported to me with six regiments of his brigade (Second of the First Division, Fourth Army Corps), numbering 110 officers and 1,355 men. The available force of my division in this column was 141 officers and 2,218 men, making an aggregate of 251 officers and 3,573 men.

I discovered that during the night the enemy had doubled his pickets along the creek, his line being numerically stronger than my immediate one by at least one-half, and they were within 50 yards of each other.

Crossing the railroad at Wauhatchie Junction, my command was marched, under cover of a belt of timber, to a point back of an old mill, about 2 1/2 miles up the creek from its mouth, and massed behind a hill which effectually screened it from view from the mountain.

At this time drifting clouds enveloped the whole ridge of the