nooga Railroad with the battery, and marched out on the pike west of that road until ordered to form connection with Seventeenth U. S. Colored Infantry. Afterward reported to Colonel Shafter, Seventeenth U. S. Colored Infantry, and then to Lieutenant-Colonel Grosvenor, Eighteenth Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, by order of Colonel Morgan. When the final charge was ordered to Overton Hill, at 4 p. m., we were ordered to take position on the left of Colonel Thompson's brigade in the first line, but having to pass through a thick mass of brush while the brigade was marching in open ground we failed to make that connection, and as the brigade continued obliquing to the left in our front, we did not regain our position during the charge. After the repulse of the first charge we reformed and took position on the right of the Seventeenth U. S. Colored Infantry, throwing up breast-works of rails for our protection, and there remained until the enemy were driven from the field.

I inclose list of killed, wounded, and missing during the two days' battle.*

Five men of my command who went through the fight in safety have since died from the officers of the severe exposure to which we were subjected, and two of my best officers were not expected to live, but believe are now recovering.

Very respectfully, yours,

L. D. JOY,

Major Eighteenth U. S. Colored Infantry, Commanding Detachment.

Lieutenant J. E. CLELAND,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, First Colored Brigade,

Major-General Steedman's Division, Army of the Cumberland.

Numbers 190. Report of Colonel Lewis Johnson, Forty-fourth U. S. Colored Troops, of operations December 2-3, 1864.

HDQRS. FORTY-FOURTH U. S. COLORED INFANTRY,
Nashville, Tenn., December 4, 1864.

LIEUTENANT: I have the honor to submit the following report of the affair which occurred on the 24d and 3rd instant, at Stockade Numbers 2, on Mill Creek (Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad), between the troops temporarily under my command and the enemy under General Forrest:

At 8 a. m. the train containing the Forty-fourth U. S. Colored Infantry and Companies A and D of the Fourteenth U. S. Colored Infantry left Murfreesborough and arrived at the bridge over Mill Creek, guarded by Block-house Numbers 2, at about 11 a. m., when suddenly a battery opened upon the train, nearly all of which was upon the trestle bridge. The locomotive and first car were struck and several of the men injured. I immediately got my command off the train and moved it up to the stockade, which I supposed was evacuated, but, on my arrival there, found it occupied by a detachment of the One hundred and fifteenth Ohio Volunteers, commanded by Lieutenant Harter. As the block-house was full, and three batteries were shelling us terribly, and a heavy musketry fire commenced from all sides, I formed my men around the house and then pushed a portion up a hill on the east side of the fort, which entirely commanded it, and from where the heaviest fire was kept up. Unable to carry the crest of the hill I kept the men on the side of it,

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* Embodied in table, p. 103.

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