ing was engaged. Taking the best cover the ground I occupied would admit of, this position was held until I was ordered to retire. Before the retiring of my line by the casualties of the day the command of the division devolved upon me, and my brigade until the next morning was under the command of my senior colonel-Owens.

Every officer is aware of the difficulty and delicate nature of the task of making just discrimination in his official reports of actions. From these difficulties, however, in making this report I am entirely relieved, because I can most faithfully state that every officer and private not only discharged his duty well, but heroically, a fact abundantly attested by the long list of killed and wounded-514 in number.

I deeply regret to have to name among the killed Colonel White, of the Fifty-third Tennessee, and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson, of the Forty-sixth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers. They both fell in front of their regiments leading them on the enemy's works. They had for many month been exiled from their homes and families, having long ago given up their fortunes to the cause. They completes and sanctified the sacrifice with their lives. Truer and more earnest hearted patriots never lived, and the purity of their of their private character gracefully softened the ruder virtues of the soldier.

Colonel W. F. Young, of the Forty-ninth Tennessee, was severely wounded while discharging his duty with that uniform coolness and gallantry which has characterized him during his whole term of service. His wound was so severe as to require the amputation of his right arm, and will, I fear, permanently disable him from duty in the field.

Colonel [Major] Knox, of the Alabama, well known as one of the most promising officers in the army, was severely and dangerously wounded in the early part of the action, and I fear that his regiment and the country will be deprived of his services for some time to come. It is praise enough of him to say that up to the time of his fall he sustained his former reputation. Major Richardson, left in command of the Fifty-third tennessee regiment after the fall of Colonel White, after having discharged every duty, was mortally wounded while retiring his regiment from the field.

The long list of line officers* killed or wounded in this action precludes in report of this nature a specific mention of their conduct, and I am at a loss for terms to express my admiration of their conduct. It must suffice to place their names upon the public record of their country.

No general officer was more efficiently and promptly seconded by his staff. My assistant adjutant-general, G. Thomas Cox, discharged even more than the duties of a staff officer. From the nature of the ground, and from fact that three of my regiments were separated from the rest of my line, it was impossible for me personally to supervise the whole. I, therefore, with perfect confidence in his coolness, capacity, and zeal, intrusted him with the immediate supervision of my three right regiments. He acquitted himself to my entire satisfaction in the discharge of this important duty. Captain Street and Captain Cowley, my assistant inspector-general, every-where acquitted themselves with that promptness and intrepidity which has characterized them during the entire campaign.

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*Nominal list (omitted) shows 12 killed and 17 wounded.

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