midnight on the night of the 1st May, and had stopped about day to feed and rest at Sandy Creek, 15 miles beyond the Amite, and had gone on the road to Baton Rouge.

From the best information I could get, the enemy's strength consisted of the Sixth and Seventh Illinois Regiments of Cavalry, the pride and boast of the United States Army, numbering in all about 1,100 picked men, well armed and mounted. It was not his desire to fight. He wanted to make observations, destroy railroads and telegraphic communications. It is said he pressed horses, the best he could find, to mount his men when a horse was jaded. He also captured mules and horses, negroes, forage, subsistence, and stole money successful raid through the length of the State of Mississippi and a part of Louisiana, one which will exhilarate for a short time the fainting spirits of the Northern war party.

We may expect a repetition of this raid on a smaller and a similar scale. We had forces enough to have captured and destroyed him, but his movements were so rapid and uncertain of aim that we could not concentrate our scattered forces or put them in concert of action. You had assigned to me men enough to have whipped him, but they were so scattered that I could not find half of them until the enemy had entered his own lines. While I had to pursue him, I could not to more than send out couriers to find the commands ordered to report to me. I followed him two him two days and nights with only 170 men, one day and two nights with 270 men, and one day and night with 470 men.

While we failed to capture or destroy the enemy, the movements on our side saved the railroad, telegraph, and Government property from him from the country with a loss on his part, by all his casualties, of about 70 men. Having done the best possible for me, with the means at my command, under the Special Orders, Number -, which you did me the honor to make, I beg leave to submit the above report, not, however, without saying that the soldierly, qualities of Major [W. A.] Rorer, his officers and men, never complaining, always ready for duty, and anxious to meet and punish the foe, won my admiration.

R. V. RICHARDSON,

Colonel, Commanding Cavalry, &c.

Lieutenant General J. C. PEMBERTON,

Comdg. Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana.

BROOKHAVEN, May 5, 1863.

Lieutenant C. M. Stewart will deliver this report at headquarters, Jackson, MISS., and report to me at Bahala.

R. V. RICHARDSON,

Colonel, Commanding Cavalry.

Number 22. Reports of Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles, C. S. Army. COLUMBUS, April 20, 1863.

The following telegrams just received:

OKOLONA, April 20, 1863.

I have just learned from our scouts and also from the provost-marshal of this place, just returned from scout, that the enemy passed down the road leading to Houston