shot while moving along, either going or returning, and consequently I will not attempt to take it up there till I hear from the general. I will not open on the mill till I hear from the general, as it will be better not to let the enemy know we have any. If I try to move up to the ferry it would take some time to open a road removed from the bayou, as it would have to be cut thought he woods all the way, though with a strong pioneer corps it might be done within a day. There are several fine bridges on the road back to your camp, and if they are destroyed the enemy cannot get down by this route to the Fordoche, at any rate with artillery or wagons, as they cross deep sloughs or bayous, with a cypress swamp on the upper side.

Respectfully,

EDMUND J. DAVIS,

Colonel, &c.

[Captain FREDERIC SPEED,

Asst. Adjt. General, Thirteenth Army Corps.

HDQRS. CAVALRY FORCES, NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS,
June 5, 1864.

CAPTAIN: I have to report that, in obedience to verbal orders from headquarters Nineteenth Army Corps, of May 29, I, at 4 a. m. of the following morning, put this command (with the exception of the Third Massachusetts, left here) in march for the Fordoche Bayou and Morgan's Ferry. At 6.15 a. m. I arrived at the point where the Morgan's Ferry road leaves the Fordoche, and (as I had been directed) there awaited the arrival of the infantry under Brigadier-General Lawler. We found here a small party (about 50), which was early driven down the Fordoche, leaving a prisoner in our hands, and taking off several wounded.

When General Lawler came up I detached Colonel Chrysler, with the Sixth Massachusetts, Second New Hampshire, and Third Maryland, to visit Morgan's Ferry, and try to ascertain what force of the enemy had passed or was passing the Atchafalaya at that point. I have not had an official report from Colonel Chrysler, but I understand he found no indications by which the strength of the enemy on this side of the Atchafalaya could be ascertained. On his return, at 3 p. m., I left his command, by direction of General Lawler, to act as rear guard for the infantry, and with the First Louisiana, Eighty-seventh Illinois, and Second New York, commenced pushing down the Fordoche in advance of General Lawler's infantry, and reached Livonia, on the Grossetete, at about 8 p. m., driving and skirmishing during the afternoon with a party of about 200 rebels, mostly Texans, under the command of Colonel Madison. They left on the route a lieutenant and several men dead. The next morning General Lawler returned tot he Morgan's Ferry road, and, with the three regiments last named, I followed the enemy down the Grossetete and Maringouin Bayous to their camp in a dense canebrake back of the plantation of David Barrow (uncle of Ratcliffe, the guerrilla), where they were dispersed, and a considerable quantity of commissary stores and clothing destroyed or brought away. We returned that afternoon to General Lawler's position.

On the morning of the 1st instant I went, by General Lawler's direction, to the Atchafalaya, and with a section of the Seventh