with the chiefs of sections of my battery on the subject, and ascertain that there are so many of the rank and file that behaved gallantly on those occasions it would make too long a list and be too invidious to mention names. You will, therefore, please erase those portions of my reports which refer to that subject, beginning with A. Gordon Bakewell and ending with Priates Wing and Hartnett.

By so doing you will much oblige, yours, very truly,

W. IRVING HODGSON,

Captain.

Capt. W. G. BARTH,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

No. 180. Report of Col. Preston Pond,jr., Sixteenth Louisiana Infantry, commanding Third Brigade.

HDQRS. THIRD BRIG., FIRST DIV., ARMY OF THE MISS., -,- -, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to submit through you to Brigadier-General Ruggles, commanding First Division, Second Grand Division, Army of the Mississippi, the following report of the movements of the Third Brigade of his division on Sunday and Monday, April 6 and 7:

On the morning of the 6th, at daylight, the brigade was formed in the order of battle, with columns doubled on the center at battalion distance, the right resting on the left of General Anderson's brigade, with the left extended towards Owl Creek and crossing the left of General Hardee's line about 500 yards to the rear.

At about 8 o'clock an order was received from General Ruggles to throw one regiment, with one section of guns, to the left, towards Owl Creek. In compliance with this order, Colonel Looney's regiment [Thirty-eighth Tennessee] and one section of Captain Ketchum's battery were thrown about three-quarters of a mile to the left, and the position assigned to them covered on the front and flank with cavalry skirmishers.

These dispositions were not quite complete when an order was received from General Ruggles to advance the whole of his line. The brigade moved forward in duble columns, over very difficult ground, endeavoring to preserve the proper interval between itself and General Anderson's brigade and at the same time to guard the flank of the line on Owl Creek. After advancing about 600 yards the brigade was halted near some small houses, with a large field on the left and also with a similar field in front.

The enemy's skirmishers being seen towards Owl Creek, Colonel Looney's regiment, with the section of Captain Ketchum's battery, were again sent to the left, to a distance of three-quarters of a mile, and posted to command the Owl Creek road. Information being received from Colonel Looney that the enemy were ambushed in his front, the Crescent Regiment, under Col. M. J. Smith, was detached to report to Colonel Looney and to support him.

Shortly after an order came from General Hardee for the left to advance. In response to this order the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Louisiana Volunteers and battalion Orleans Guards advanced until they reached the line occupied by the Second Brigade, commanded by General Anderson, which brigade was engaging the enemy in one of his camps and which he was stubbornly contesting.