HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, June 3, 1862.

GENERAL: The report of your recent engagement with the enemy at Slash Church has been forwarded by Major-General Hill. I take great pleasure in expressing my approval of the manner in which you have discharged the duties of the position in which you were placed and of the gallant manner you troops opposed a very superior force of the enemy. I beg you will signify to the troops of your command which were engaged on that occasion my hearty approval of their conduct and hope that on future occasions they will evince a like heroism and patriotic devotion.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE,

General.

Brigadier General L. O'B BRANCH, Commanding, &c.

No. 36. Report of Colonel James H. Lane,

Twenty-eighth North Carolina Infantry, of engagement May 27.

HDQRS. TWENTY-EIGHTH Regiment NORTH CAROLINA VOLS., Near Richmond, June 1, 1862.

GENERAL: In obedience to your orders I proceeded to Taliaferro's Mill on the morning of the 27th of May with 890 of my regiment and a section of Latham's battery, command by Lieutenant J. R. Potts. While I was there, examining the ground for a suitable position for my forces information was received that the enemy was approaching in the direction of Hanover Court-House. I immediately retraced my steps, marching left in front, and throwing out a platoon of Company G as flankers, under Captain George B. Jonston, to my right, the supposed direction of the enemy, while the other was thrown to my left and front, under Lieutenant E. G. Morrow. It was not until we h ad nearly emerged from the pine thicket in front of Dr. Kinney's that we discovered some of the enemy ambushed in the same to our left, and where we were not expecting them. The regiment was immediately halted, faced by the rear rank, and wheeled to the right through the woods, pouring a deadly fire into a portion of the Twenty-fifth New York Regiment as they executed the movement. As soon as we cleared the thicket and appeared in the road running by Dr. Kinney's to Richmond another portion of the enemy, previously concealed in the wheat and behind the house immediately in front of us, opened a sharp fire, which was promptly returned by the Twenty-eighth.

The regiment was then ordered to charge, and did it most gallantly, many of them, shouting, leaped the ditch and high fence inclosing the field of wheat, while the rest rushed into the yard and around the house. The enemy, armed with Springfield rifles, were "flushed" like so much game, and dropped back into the wheat before our unerring marksmen. Here and in the woods we killed and wounded not less than 200 and took a large number of prisoners, only about 75 of whom we were able to send to the rear, and put in charge of a small detachment of cavalry from the Fourth Virginia Regiment, which was retiring from the mill. It was not until we had swept the Twenty-fifth New York Regiment before us and passed nearly across the wheat field that