Numbers 3. Report of Brigadier General Colly B. Holland, Missouri Militia, of engagement at Springfield, Mo.

HDQRS. FOURTH DIST., ENROLLED MISSOURI MILITIA,
Springfield, January 11, 1863.

COLONEL: I have the honor to submit the following report:

On the evening of the 7th instant, Brigadier General E. B. Brown, commanding Southwestern District of Missouri, received intelligence from a scouting party, composed of detachments of the Fourteenth Missouri State Militia and Seventy-third Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, under command of Captain [M.] Burch, that a large force of the enemy, said to be 6,000 strong, under command of General Marmaduke, were moving on Lawrence's Mill, Taney County, from Dubuque, Ark., with the intention of attacking this place, to capture the depot of arms and stores, and to destroy all communication with the Army of the Frontier and Saint Louis.

Immediately orders were dispatched by me to Colonel [J. W.] Johnson, Twenty-sixth Regiment; Colonel [Henry] Sheppard, Seventy-second Regiment; Colonel [Marcus] Boyd, Seventy-fourth Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, to call in all their furloughed men and concentrate them immediately at this post; also to detached companies in Dade and Lawrence Counties.

In the course of the night information was received confirming the report of the enemy's advance. At daylight on the 8th, the troops stationed at Ozark arrived, reporting the enemy had arrived and burned their post, and by 10 a. m. our pickets were attacked, and he appeared on the edge of the prairie southeast of town.

The enemy at once planted his battery and commenced firing upon the town and Fort Numbers 4, commanding the approach from the south; while the cavalry, consisting of detachments of the Third, Fourth, and Fourteenth Missouri State Militia, were formed on the left of the fort, and charged on the enemy's right.

General Brown formed his line of battle, with detachments of cavalry on the left, southeast of town, a detachment of the Eighteenth Iowa Infantry on their right, Fort Numbers 4, mounting two guns, garrisoned with Company C; Colonel Boyd's Seventy-fourth Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, Captain [G. B.] Phillips, and convalescent soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant [J.] Hoffman, of the First Missouri Artillery, connected with the Army of the Frontier, and a brick college, inclosed on three sides with palisades, used for a military prison, being the center; Colonel Sheppard's regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia Infantry to the right of the college, flanked on his right by detachments of cavalry, with Fort Numbers 1 about one-half mile to the rear, being the extreme right, which was garrisoned by the Eighteenth Iowa and citizens.

The skirmishing with cavalry on our left, with artillery firing, continued with but trifling loss until 2 p. m., when the enemy extended his left, and advanced his right and whole line toward Fort Numbers 4. After some sharp fighting, he was repulsed from the fort, but succeeded in capturing one piece of artillery, which, in charge of a small detachment of the Eighteenth Iowa, was advanced too far to the front, the horses being killed and the men compelled to retire with heavy loss. Upon the repulse from Fort Numbers 4, the enemy combined his attack upon our right wing, composed of Colonel Sheppard's regiment, when the hardest and most decisive fighting of the day took place. This regiment main