command of the brigade devolved on his able and gallant successor, Colonel Crocrer. Major Abercrombie, of the Eleventh Iowa, was also severely wounded while faithfully performing his duty; and Captain Harvey, of the Eighth, Adjutant Thompson, of the Twentieth Illinois, and Captains Burnett and Sprague, of Companies E and H, Twenty-ninth Illinois, besides many other gallant and meritorious officers, were killed.

Left unsupported and alone, the Twentieth and Seventeenth Illinois, together with other portions of my division not borne back by the retreating multitude, retired in good order, under the immediate command of Colonel March and Lieutenant-Colonel Wood, and reformed under my direction, the right resting near the former line and the left at an acute angle with it. A more extended line, comprising portions of regiments, brigades, and division, was soon after formed on this nucleus by the efforts of General Sherman, myself, and other officers. Here, in the eighth position occupied by my division during the day, we rested in line of battle upon our arms, uncovered and exposed to a drenching rain during the night. Yet night, inclement as it was and the arrival of re-enforcements, which came, were prayed for as the assurance of better fortune next day.

Having been directed by you on the evening of the 6th to assume command of all detached and fragmentary corps in the vicinity of my line,your order of the morning of the 7th for a forward movement found the Forty-sixth Illinois on my right and portions of Generals Hurlbut's and Buell's troops on my left. The Fifty-third Ohio was formed as a reserve, the Twenty-ninth Illinois having been ordered still farther to the left and near the landing, for the purpose of driving and keeping back fugitives. Moving forward obliquity to the left I passed unobstructedly over the scene of my last engagement and reached the scene of the cavalry charge. Here I ordered a halt, and adjusted my line in a wood, extending to the left and skirting a field in front. Meanwhile McAllister's battery was brought near the corner of the field, and replied to a battery posted beyond the camp of my First Brigade. After this fire had been continued for a few minutes I pushed on to my old camp and readjusted my line just behind it. The Twenty-eight Illinois, Colonel Johnson, here joined me, was formed on my left obliquely to the rear.

McAllister's battery was again brought up to the center of my line, and again replied to the battery in front and to another to its. left. A few minutes after I discovered troops to my right, near, Owl Creek, which I was informed were General L. Wallace's. One or more batteries, supposed to belong to his command, were advanced in the field in front and near the right of my camp, and also opened fire upon the battery in front of my line.

Thus clearing the woods in front in that direction, preceded by skirmishers, my line advanced through my camp obliquely to the southwest, thus retaking it. At the same time Generals Sherman and Wallace were seen advancing in the same general direction. Approaching a hasty and rude breastwork of logs formed by the enemy during Sunday night, his skirmishers opened an irregular fire, which caused the Fifty-third Ohio to retire in disorder, breaking my line. My right staggered for a moment, recovered itself, and, under the lead of Colonel Marsh, opened an oblique fire, which immediately dispersed the enemy in that direction, leaving us in possession of my recaptured camp.

About the same time information was brought that the enemy were advancing in strong force to turn the left of my line. To prevent this