ing efforts to lighten my labors and to facilitate the march. Captain W. J. Wyatt also rendered efficient service in aiding the sick and rescuing the drowning.

I am not able to report the number of our troops fallen into the hands of the enemy. Nearly all the officers and men of Colonels Baker's, Brown's, Henderson's, Clark's, and Smith's regiment, together with Brigadier-Generals Mackall and Gantt, surrendered, as I am credibly informed, on the morning of the 8th, as also most of Colonel Steedman's First Alabama Regiment; as I judge, about 2,000 in all.

It is to be hoped that Captain Wheeler's cavalry company will yet make, or have made, their escape.

All the ammunition, quartermaster's, and most of the commissary stores, as well as the guns on the island, and two transport boats-the Yazoo and the De Soto-fell into the hands of the enemy.

Very respectfully,

W. D. S. COOK,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding Twelfth Arkansas Regiment.

Colonel THOMAS JORDAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 41. Report of Colonel J. B. G. Kennedy,* Twenty-first Louisiana Infantry.

HDQRS. TWENTY-FIRST REGIMENT LOUISIANA VOLS.,
Camped at Tupelo, July 4, 1862.

SIR: In compliance with your note of the 3rd instant, requesting a statement of the condition of Island Numbers 10 and Madrid Bend on my arrival and subsequent condition on the 2nd of March, 1862, it affords me, general, great pleasure to give you all the information now in my memory, having lost all my books and papers at the evacuation of Corinth, except your orders in regard to that particular post.

On the 23rd of February, 1862, I embarked at Columbus, Ky., with 25 men, of Company A, of my regiment, and 200 negroes, per steamer Marie, after loading the boat with commissary stores and lumber. We proceeded to Island Numbers 10, and arrived at that port on the morning of the 24th. Captain Harris and Captain Gray, Engineer officers, Captain Wintter, with one company of Sappers and Miners, and the Forty-sixth Tennessee Regiment, under command of Lieutenant Colonel J. W. Johnson, mustering total 400 men, of which but 155 were present for duty, making my working force 405 men. There were at the time of my arrival two batteries, known as Rucker's, or upper battery, and the lower battery, directly opposite the head of the island; these batteries are one mile and a half apart. Rucker's battery had three 32-pounders mounted; the lower battery had one 32-pounder mounted, and nine guns were at the landing dismounted.

I immediately divided my forces, and proceeded to mount guns and repair the upper battery, which at the time was much out of repair and the magazine inundated. Five additional guns were mounted at the lower battery and four on the upper; these guns were rifles 32-pounders. Other places were selected in the bend for batteries, and

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*Colonel J. B. G. Kennedy does not appear on the records of Twenty-first Louisiana found in the War Department. He was lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth Louisiana Battalion.

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