regiment till the close of the action and since, undergoing all its fatiguing marches and duties spiritedly. Lieutenants Long and Freeman were wounded severely and disabled. Lieutenant Kidd was also slightly wounded. It is a pleasant duty to call attention to the conduct of Sergt. Frederick Hair, Company B, who, having his wounds received in the earlier part of the engagement dressed, returned to duty with the company, where he remained until entirely disabled by a severe wound in the leg; also Privates Peter Burns, of Company D, and Wiliam Shute, of Company K, both under sentence by general court-martial for desertion, who redeemed their doubtful reputations as good and loyal soldiers. I hope these two cases will be especially noticed and their sentences remitted. Private Shute, though a general prisoner, labored hard and fearlessly, carrying our wounded from the field back to the hospital.

I would add, as a matter of justice to a brave and efficient officer, First Lieutenant George H. McLoughlin, Second Infantry. As the command was retiring from the field Lieutenant McLoughlin discovered and secured a lieutenant of a Louisiana regiment, and brought him into our camp and delivered him to the division provost-marshal at Camp Lincoln, Va., on the morning of the 28th of June.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. S. POLAND,

First Lieutenant, Commanding Regiment.

Captain FRED. T. LOCKE,

Asst. Adjt. General, General F. J. Porter's Corps d'Armee.

Numbers 149. Report of Captain Thomas Hendrickson,

Sixth U. S. Infantry, of the battles of Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill.

HEADQUARTERS SIXTH INFANTRY,
Camp near James River, Va., July 4, 1862.

SIR: In obedience to instructions I have the honor to report the part taken by the Sixth U. S. Infantry, under my command, in the battle with the enemy in the vicinity of Gaines' mill, Va., on the 27th of June last, and also in that of the 2nd of July instant, near

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About 3 o'clock p.m. of the 27th of June I received an order by the acting assistant adjutant-general of the Second Brigade, Sykes' division, of which the Sixth Infantry forms a part, to take the regiment and report to Colonel Warren, of the Fifth New York Volunteers, commanding the Third Brigade, same division, then engaged with the enemy in front.

In compliance with this order I immediately reported to Colonel Warren, and was ordered by him to take up a position in the wood to the left of his line and nearly at right angles with it, for the purpose of protecting his left flank and the ground in front of his line should the enemy again appear in that direction.

The regiment had been but a few minutes in position when the two or three companies composing the left flank received a heavy volley of musketry from a body of our own troops stationed diagonally to the right and front of my line. This unexpected event and the immediate falling back at the same time of a body of volunteers on its left caused