Wilson, I was able to efficiently mount the Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry and Seventh Ohio Cavalry. My mounted troops I placed under command of Colonel Harrison and my dismounted regiments under command of Colonel James Biddle, Sixth Indiana Cavalry, who, on the 7th of December, joined me with his regiment dismounted, so that when offensive operations began I moved with one brigade mounted, composed of the Fifth Iowa, Seventh Ohio, and Sixteenth Illinois Regiments, commanded by Colonel Harrison, with an aggregate strength of 1,340, and a dismounted brigade, composed of the Sixth Indiana and Fourteenth Illinois Regiments, commanded by Colonel James Biddle, of an aggregate strength of 759. The Eighth Michigan Cavalry, being armed with only pistols and sabers, and the Third Tennessee Cavalry, which reported to me on the 13th of December, for the most part without arms (their arms having been taken away from them by order of Brigadier-General Hammond, upon their return to my division from his brigade, with which they had been serving), I left in camp at Nashville.

On the morning of the 12th of December, in accordance with orders from the brevet major-general commanding corps, we broke camp, crossed the river, and moved to the vicinity of Hefferman's house, near the Charlotte pike; there we remained in bivouac during the two following days.

At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 15th of December, in accordance with Special Orders, Numbers 3, from corps headquarters, I broke camp and moved on the Charlotte pike to the exterior line of fortifications, which I found occupied by McArthur's division of General A. J. Smith's corps. My orders required me to advance upon the enemy at 6 a. m., but as General McArthur's troops did not get in motion until long past this hour, and when their movement began advanced at first on the precise line by which I was directed to move, and as the orders contemplated a simultaneous attack, both by the infantry and cavalry, all along the line, my division covering the right and rear of the movement, I was delayed for several hours beyond the time designated. It was about 11 o'clock, as nearly as I can remember, that I received a message from Major-General Wilson, through a staff officer, notifying me that everything was in readiness for the attack, and directing me to advance. In order to answer the fire of a battery, which the movements of General McArthur's troops had previously developed on the commanding heights beyond Richland Creek, I had previously posted two pieces of Lieutenant Smith's battery in position near Douglass' house in the low ground on this side of the creek. I at first ordered Colonel biddle to advance with his regiments deployed across the pike, and with a strong skirmish line covering his front to cross the creek, drive in the enemy's skirmishes, and assault the enemy's barricades on the crest of the ridge beyond, Harrison to hold himself in readiness to follow up Biddle's attack with his mounted brigade. But the movements of the dismounted cavalry were so slow, owing, I suppose, partly so their being unused to maneuver as infantry, partly to the difficulty in crossing the creek, and partly to their sabers, which the commanding officer of the Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry had, with a singular shortsightedness, permitted his men to bring with them, that I finally ordered Harrison to pass the dismounted brigade and attack the enemy with all possible energy. My order was executed with commendable celerity. The Fifth Iowa dismounted and engaged the skirmishers sharply in the neighborhood of the pike, finally crossing the creek and driving them from their covert, while the Sixteenth Illinois Cavalry, passing to their left, crossed the creek and