energy, and by main strength carried wagons and artillery over a road which many would pronounce impassable to either.

On the following morning (15th) I received a dispatch from Brigadier-General Spears, dated Big Creek Gap, sunrise, stating that his pickets were then engaging the enemy, and requesting me to come up rapidly to his support. The order was given to advance, and so eager were the men to get in front of the enemy that, notwithstanding the fatigues and hardships of the preceding day and night, a portion of the force crossed Little Cumberland Mountain, and before meridian had made a junction with Brigadier-General Spears at Big Creek Gap,a distance of 10 miles from their camping ground of that morning. The Fourth Tennessee, Colonel Johnson, was ordered to join General Spears, to whose brigade he belonged.

On the morning of the 16th instant I left Big Creek Gap with my command and moved up Powell's Valley through Fincastle, and in the afternoon of same day reported the arrival of my force to the commanding general. On my way up the valley we found a quantity of rebel stores, belonging to the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment, at the house of a Mrs. A. Kincaid, which I had destroyed.

In closing this report I must express my admiration, not only for the zeal and perseverance of the officers and men under my command, but for their uncomplaining, orderly, and soldierly deportment during the whole march. Notwithstanding the fears which have been felt by some that, owing to the great wrongs and barbarities to which the Tennessee soldiers and their families have been subjected by the rebel troops and their sympathizers, there would be much trouble in restraining them from wreaking vengeance on their enemies, I do not know of a single instance in which they failed to conduct themselves as soldiers of the Union should, from the day we reached Big Creek Gap until we joined the other forces at Rogers' Gap.

Respectfully, &c.,

S. P. CARTER,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Twenty-fourth Brigade.

Captain CHARLES O. JOLINE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

No. 5. Report of Brig. General James G. Spears, U. S. Army, commanding Twenty-fifth Brigade, Army of the Ohio, of operations June 10-15.

HDQRS. TWENTY-FIFTH BRIGADE, ARMY OF THE OHIO,
Cumberland Gap, June 24, 1862.

CAPTAIN: In obedience to instructions of June 10, 1862, I proceeded with my command (then composed of Third, Fifth, and Sixth Regiments of Tennessee Volunteers, commanded respectively by Colonels Houk, Shelley, and Cooper) by way of Big Creek Gap, in order to join Brigadier-General Morgan at Speedwell. The advance of my command, after having opened and removed a heavy blockade through Pine and Cumberland Mountains, entered the Gap on the evening of the 11th, at which point my pickets were fired on by the pickets of the enemy, which resulted in a pretty heavy skirmish. As we advanced through the Gap the enemy's pickets, lying in ambush, contested our advance, and fired