Numbers 51. Report of Lieutenant Thomas J. Ginn, Third Indiana Battery, of engagement at Yellow Bayou.

HEADQUARTERS THIRD INDIANA BATTERY,
Vicksburg, Miss., May 24, 1864.

SIR: In compliance with your order of this date I have the honor to report as follows concerning the part taken by my command, the Third Indiana Battery, in the action with the enemy at Old Oaks, La., on the 18th instant, viz: Early in the morning of that day I was ordered by Brigadier-General Mower to take the two James rifled belonging to the battery into action against the enemy, who were then attacking our forces on a road leading along Yellow Bayou. I went into action with the guns mentioned at about 8 a. m. in the day, opening fire on the enemy at a distance of about 1 1/4 miles and continuing the same at the same range steadily for about one hour and a half, when I withdrew the guns out of reach of the enemy's fire in consequence of having exhausted all the long-range ammunition belonging to them, my instructions not allowing me to go any farther. During this time the enemy opposed us with rifled guns, throwing projectiles of our own manufacture (3-inch rifled) at us, making good shots at our position. In this action my command behaved commendably, and I have reason to believe did good execution on the enemy's forces opposed to us. Toward noon of the same day I was ordered to bring forward the remainder of the battery, consisting of two 12-pounder smooth-bores and two 6-pounder smooth-bores. These guns were halted for perhaps one hour and a half in an open field, a few hundred yards to the rear of the center of the line of our forces. Our forces were by this time more or less engaged all along the whole extent of their line. At about 1.30 p. m. I was ordered to bring forward the 12-pounder and take a position in the edge of a wood on the left of our forces, which had just been vacated by the Ninth Indiana Battery Light Artillery. We here immediately opened fire upon the enemy with shot and shell at a distance of nearly 2,000 yards, and which we had kept up but a short time when the enemy made a heavy charge upon our forces in that part of the field, threatening their left flank seriously. I immediately turned my guns upon the advancing columns of the enemy, and that, too, with double charges of canister-shot at a distance of not over 350 yards. At most the effect of our fire here was splendid and contributed greatly to the defeat and discomfiture of the enemy. i was soon compelled to retire these two guns, as the whole line of our forces in that part of the field fell back a few hundred yards before the charge of the enemy mentioned. In the mean time I had ordered up one of my James rifled, guns, with a new supply of long-range ammunition, and with the five guns of my command now on the field went into battery just in the edge of the woods, where I had found the center of the line of battle of our forces on first coming into action. Nothing more of any importance occurred in my command that day. I remained on the field with the five guns until late in the evening, when we were relieved and fell back with the Second Brigade, Third Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, to a position several hundred yards to the rear of the line of battle. During the day we fired about 150