and to say that the picket line, to which reference is frequently made by you, was composed of different regiments of the corps, and was exclusively under the direction of General Garrard, general officer of the day. This officer has already forwarded his own report. The general bids me do this in order that no misapprehension may exist at the headquarters of the right column, where these reports will be transmitted. General Garrard was ordered to establish the picket line on the Rappahannock, and you were directed to support that line wherever needed. The general would like to get the name of the regiment or regiments whose skirmishers entered the redoubt with those of the Sixth Corps. Captain Woodward, Eighty-third Pennsylvania, can possibly supply the information.*

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRED. T. LOCKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Brigadier General J. J. BARTLETT,

Commanding First Division.

Numbers 21. Report of Colonel Joseph Hayes, Eighteenth Massachusetts Infantry, commanding First Brigade, of engagement at Rappahannock Station.

HDQRS. FIRST Brigadier, FIRST DIV., FIFTH ARMY CORPS, November 10, 1863.

CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report the operations of this command since the 7th instant.

The brigade moved from its camp at Three-Mile Station at 7 a. m., and took up its line of march toward the Rappahannock, following the Second Division of the corps. Upon marching a point on the road about a mile and a half from Rappahannock Station, the brigade was halted and formed in line of battle, and the battalions were ployed into column of divisions at half distance.

Upon my reporting to Brigadier-General Bartlett, who had then assumed command of the division, I received orders from him to hold my command in readiness to move forward toward the enemy, who were occupying some intrenched heights near Rappahannock Station. with my right resting on the railroad, at about 3 p. m. the advance was sounded and the brigade advanced in the following order: The One hundred and eighteenth Pennsylvania on the right, and the Eighteenth Massachusetts and the First Michigan, with the Twenty-second Massachusetts, on the left of the line.

At the command, the brigade promptly advanced through the woods in our front and debouched into the open plain. Having advanced some 500 yards, the enemy opened his artillery, when the command was halted and I was ordered by the general commanding the division to throw my right and left regiments forward 200 yards and deploy them. This having been accomplished, the command again moved forward. The enemy's fire now became more severe, he having a perfect range upon our line, exposed as it was on the open plain. The brigade, however, pressed on in perfect order some half a mile

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*The last paragraph of the preceding, report was added by General Bartlett in obedience to the instructions contained in this letter.

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