very much fatigued. The regiment was posted on the left of our advance line, with a dense growth of small trees and underbrush in front and rear and on my left, my right resting on the Baldwyn road, so called. I covered my front and left, after getting into position, with two companies deployed s skirmishers. After the enemy had attacked and forced back the right and center of our lines they advanced in heavy force against my position. My skirmish line was engaged and driven in with loss, Capts. Wells Allis and R. M. Hanson, who commanded it, being very severely wounded (perhaps mortally), and the former left on the field. The regiment on my right having given way the enemy flanked me on that side and also on my left. I, therefore, retired my line in as good order as possible forty or FIFTY yards and made another stand, holding the position until again flanked and compelled to retire. This time my men fell back perhaps seventy- five yards, still in the timber and brush, when they again withstood the enemy until my right was again turned. I then drew off my men to and across the Guntown road, on which we had advanced, to the cross- roads, and rallied them behind a rail fence FIFTY or seventy- five yards distant from the road. This position I was ordered to hold as long as possible, and did so, until our forces, including artillery, which had been on my right and not previously left the field, drew off in my rear, and until the enemy again turned my right flank, when my men had to retreat across the bottom through bayous and a creek in order to regain the main road. The retreat having by this time become general, it was very difficult to assemble my men. A number were, however, collected on the roadside some distance from the field, and, pursuant to orders from Colonel McMillen, halted until Colonel McMillen, commanding the brigade, came up with the remaining organized force of the Ninth Minnesota and One hundred and fourteenth Illinois, with which regiments I kept the rear until we reached Ripley next morning, having been delayed between two and three hours at a swamp across which it was found impossible to pass the artillery and few wagons and ambulances that had preceded us on the retreat. At the time I arrived in Ripley the enemy attacked that place vigorously and successfully, so that I could not effect a junction with the portion of my regiment which had preceded me to that point, and which I understand since had been assembled under command of Captain Stansbury. The captain moved our with his command on one road, and in the confusion I took, with the few officers and men left with me under command of Colonel Wilkin, another. From Ripley the retreat was continued, passing on the road from Salem to Saulsbury, crossing Wolf River at Davis' Mills, and through La Fayette and Collierville. The men under my immediate command arrived in Memphis on the evening of the 13th.

In the battle and on the disastrous retreat my officers and men behaved well. I know of no one who failed in performing his duty, and it would be invidious to name those who acquitted themselves with credit.

I append a list of casualties, in which only those known certainly to be killed and wounded are so marked. hers were also killed an wounded in the woods and bushes, where much of our fighting was done, and from which they did not emerge. Of the officers lost 7 were in command of companies. My men suffered

---------------

Shows 1 officer and 5 men killed, 3 officers and 21 men wounded, and 8 officers and 154 men missing; total, 192.

---------------