I regret the absence of Captain Powhatan Ellis, [jr.], chief of staff during the action. He was engaged at my headquarters on important business, and I was thus deprived of his always valuable services.

The same may be said of others of my staff who were absent on duty at various points.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

LLOYD TILGHMAN,

Commanding First Division, First Corps, Army of West Tennessee.

Lieutenant Colonel E. IVY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Inclosure.]

Command. Killed. Wounded. Missing.

FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST

DIVISION, FIRST CORPS.

26th Mississippi Regiment. 3 3 1

8th Kentucky Regiment. 1 6 4

23rd Mississippi Regiment. 2 14 4

14th Mississippi Regiment.

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3

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SECOND BRIGADE, SECOND

DIVISION, FIRST CORPS.

9th Regiment Arkansas 1 17 1

Volunteers.

Total. 7 43 10

Numbers 12.

Report of Colonel John M. Loomis, Twenty-sixth Illinois Infantry, of affair near Oxford, Miss., December 4, 1862.

HEADQUARTERS COMMANDANT OF THE POST, Oxford, Miss., December 17, 1862.

MAJOR: I have the honor to report the facts narrated in the paper over the signature of John W. Risoe are mainly true. On the 4th day of December, 1862, a party of 7 men belonging to the hospital of the Twenty-sixth Illinois Infantry were at the house of Mr. M. H. Thompson, whither they had gone to purchase supplies for the hospital. This Thompson's house was 2 miles, and in plain sight, from the camp of the Twenty-sixth Illinois.

At about 10 a. m. on the 4th day of December, 1862, a negro belonging to Mr. Thompson reported at camp Mitchell's band were camped within 1 1/2 miles of Thompson's house. At about 2 o'clock p. m. the same day the men of the Twenty-sixth Illinois were at the negro quarters on Thompson's place purchasing chickens and milk, when Mitchell's band came upon them, from the direction of Thompson's house, and immediately fired upon them, killing 1 and wounding 3. The balance were taken prisoners and marched to Mitchell's camp. The man killed here was Martin Hanley, shot and wounded by Lieutenant Powell, of Mitchell's band, and said Powell afterward beat Hanley's brains out with his pistol (Hanley's). While Powell was so engaged Thompson ran out of his house exclaiming, "That is right; kill the God d--d Yankee son of a bitch." Mitchell then moved off with his band and prisoners, accompanied by Thompson and his oversees. On this march some member of Mitchell's [band] shot and left in the woods another man, named