see to it that no such occurrence shall again take place from his command. The general is informed that this party was sent out without leave of Colonel Phelps, commandant of post.

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

Numbers 3. Report of Lieutenant Colonel E. Kapff, Seventh New York Infantry.

CAMP BUTLER, July 13, 1861.

The undersigned respectfully reports that about 3.30 o'clock yesterday afternoon he, according to orders from the commander of the post, left the camp at the head of a patrol, consisting of all the available men of Companies A, B, D, F, G, H, and K, numbering about 200. He sent Companies A and F, under the chief command of Captain Gaebel, as a vanguard, to proceed up the road to the spot where, according to the statement of those returned, the engagement had taken place, and followed with the main body. Having arrived at the farm of Mr. William Lee, he halted there, and dispatched Company D up the road as a connecting link between the vanguard and the main body, and also several smaller troops to search the neighboring woods, fields, and farms. These smaller parties, on their return, reported that they had seen nothing of the enemy, but met some of our own men, whom they brought with them, and from whom further information was obtained in regard to the engagement.

Meanwhile captain Gaebel advanced up the road, having sent out on either flank smaller parties to search the neighboring woods, fields, farms, &c., without meeting with any sign of the enemy until he came to the spot where a side road branches off from the main road to the right in an angle of about 750, and from which there is a connection, by a limber road, with the farm of Mr. Baker Lee, where he found unmistakable traces of a large body of cavalry, which had come down this side road, as it appeared, in full trot, and turned sharp around the corner of the main road, obliterating on it the tracks of the horse-cart which Lieutenant Heringen had taken with him, and which thus far had been visible. Meanwhile several stragglers had been picked up by Captain Gaebels' men, who confirmed all the former information and his own conclusions, arrived at by the hoof-prints just referred to, as to the place where the engagement had taken place, and he therefore proceeded up the road with all dispatch possible, without, however, neglecting to search carefully the woods, &c., on either side of the road.

Having arrived at the spot pointed out by the stragglers, which is about a hundred yards this side of the opening on which Mr. Nelson Smith's dwelling-house is situated, he found in the vicinity of a fallen tree, near which Lieutenant Mosebach was said to have been wounded, having taken place there, which extended up the road to the fields and the dwelling-house of Mr. Smith. Captain Gaebel then sent several small pickets into the woods to search them carefully, and commanded Lieutenant Glaubensklee, with about twenty-four men, to Mr. Smith's farm, leaving the rest of the troops, under the command of Lieutenants Brausen and Hokenhausen, on the main road, after the latter had posted three men about three hundred yards farther up the road, as an outpost against the enemy, the neighing of whose horses was distinctly heard by these men in very close vicinity. Before Lieutenant Glaubensklee