by that excellent and dashing officer, Colonel Joseph Karge, of the Second New Jersey Volunteers, in his reconnaissance to Corinth, and his subsequent management of the rear guard, during a part of the retreat, fighting and defending the rear during one whole afternoon and throughout the entire night following.

To the officers of my staff-Lieutenant Colonel J. C. Hess, Nineteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, commanding escort; Captain W. C. Rawolle, aide-de-camp and acting assistant adjutant-general; Captain W. S. Belden, Second Iowa Cavalry, aide-de-camp; Lieutenant E. Calkins, Seventh Indiana Cavalry, aide-de-camp; Lieutenant Samuel Oakford, Nineteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, aide- de-camp; Lieutenant Dement, acting assistant quartermaster; Lieutenant W. H. Stratton, Seventh Illinois Cavalry, acting commissary of subsistence, whose names appear in no other report-I am especially grateful for the promptness and zeal with which my orders were executed at all times, and often under trying and hazardous circumstances.

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

S. D. STURGIS,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Major W. H. MORGAN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Hdqrs. Dist. of WEST Tennessee, Memphis, Tenn.

ADDENDA.

MEMPHIS, TENN., June 14, 1864.

Major MORGAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, District of WEST Tennessee:

MAJOR: In view of the fact that my campaign has ended disastrously and will be severely and perhaps unjustly criticized and misrepresented, I would respectfully request that I be relieved from further active duty (for the present), and that an investigation of the cause of failure be made as early as practicable, and while the officers are now here and their evidence can be secured.

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

S. D. STURGIS,

Brigadier-General.

MEMPHIS, TENN., June 22, 1864.

Brigadier General S. D. STURGIS, U. S. Volunteers:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date in which you ask me to give you my opinion as to the causes of our late defeat near Guntown, and to what extent, if any, you were responsible for the same. In reply I would state that at the outset one great difficulty existed in the fact that the command was composed of troops of different commands, unacquainted with and distrustful of each other and new to the general commanding. A large portion of the force consisted of cavalry, which from the nature of things had to act in a great measure independently, being in advance and at a distance from your person; again, owing to the rain, bad condition of the roads, and the almost entire absence of forage for the animals, caused our advance to be necessarily slow. Frequent halts, sometimes for a whole day, were made in order to enable you to send out forage