[CHAP. XXII.

retary, toward the close of the second day, and of Corporal Adam Cloninger and Private John Stalnaker, of Captain Cox's cavalry, who were killed while serving as couriers under my immediate orders.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

DANIEL RUGGLES,

Brigadier-General, C. S. Army, Commanding Division.

Major GEORGE G. GARNER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE,
Tullahoma, Tenn., April 21, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded, with the request that this be substituted for Brigadier-General Ruggles' former report. The facts he states are not within my personal knowledge, as I was at the time on a distant part of the field; but he is sustained by his subordinate commanders and a mass of other testimony, and justice to his command entitles his request to consideration.

BRAXTON BRAGG,

General, C. S. Army.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.]

HDQRS. FIRST DIST., DEPT. OF MISS. AND EAST LA.,
Columbus, Miss., April 7, 1863.

GENERAL: I have the honor to transmit for your consideration some official statements from officers commanding field batteries and others possessing personal knowledge touching the events connected with the closing scenes of the battle of Shiloh, on Sunday evening, April 6, 1862; and

1st. A letter from Colonel Smith P. Bankhead, artillery, Provisional Army, dated December 16, 1862.

2nd. A letter from Captain L. D. Sandidge, division inspector, dated January 24, 1863.

3rd. A letter from Colonel S. S. Heard, late colonel of the Seventeenth Regiment Louisiana Volunteers, dated March 18, 1863.

4th. A letter from Captain James C. Thrall, artillery, C. S. Provisional Army, dated April 1, 1863.

By reference to my own official report of that period, in the battle specially referred to, the following statement will be found, viz:

As the enemy finally gave way I directed the movement of the Second Brigade toward the right, along the crest of the ridge, following the line of the enemy's continued resistance, and sent a section of Ketchum's battery into action on a road leading toward Pittsburg, in a position overlooking the broken slope below, to reply to batteries nearly in front and in the forest to the right, with which the enemy swept a large circuit around; sending also Colonel Smith's (Louisiana Crescent) regiment, Third Brigade, to support this battery, then harassed by skirmishers, and to seize the opportunity to charge the enemy's position. I then put a section of guns in position on the road leading the ridge still farther to the right, which was soon forced to retire under the concentrated fire of the enemy's artillery.

Discovering the enemy in considerable numbers moving through the forest on the lower margin of the open field in front, I obtained Trabue's and Stanford's light batteries and brought them into action, and directed their fire on masses of the enemy then pressing forward toward our right, engaged in a fierce contest with our forces then advancing against him in that direction.

For a brief period the enemy apparently gained ground, and when the conflict was at its height these batteries opened upon his concentrated forces, producing immediate commotion, and soon resulted in the precipitate retreat of the enemy from the contest.