of my command, both front line and reserve, was repulsed in confusion; but over this obstacle, impassable for a solid line, many officers and men (among the former Brigadier-General Shelley) made their way, and some, crossing the ditch in its rear, were captured and others killed or wounded in the effort to mount the embankment. Numbers of every brigade gained the ditch and there continued the struggle with but the earth-work separating them from the enemy until late in the night.

No reports of brigade commandeers have yet been received. These will be sent forward as soon as they reach me. The number killed, wounded, and missing in the several brigades has already been reported, and full lists will be forwarded with brigade reports.

Brigadier-General Quarles was severely wounded at the head of his brigade within a short distance of the enemy's inner line, and all his staff officers with him on the field were killed; and so heavy were the losses in his command that when the battle ended its officer highest in rank was a captain. I regret that I cannot here so present the details of this desperate conflict as to show how severely the courage and manhood of my troops were tested, and to give to the living and the dead the full measure of their honors well earned, though in defeat. Unequal to this, I am content to say that a bolder and steadier assault, or one more likely to prevail without greater numbers, could not have been made upon those formidable works than was made by the gallant and skillful brigade commanders of my division with he brave and faithful troops under their command.

My staff officers, it is but justice to them to say, acquitted themselves to my entire satisfaction, and in a manner extremely creditable to themselves. The were disabled while efficiently discharging their trusts, and the others dismounted by shots from the enemy's line soon after the engagement commenced. My assistant adjutant-general, Captain W. R. Barksdale, an officer distinguished alike for the intelligence and fearlessness with which all his official duties were performed, was seriously wounded just after the enemy was driven from his outer line, and Captain H. Powell, my aide-de-camp--whose courage and accomplishments had endeared him to my whole command, but to none so much as myself, who had tested his fidelity in several trying scenes before--was shot through the body while bearing an important order and died soon after from the wound.

The enemy withdrew during the night, but not till after orders had been received to renew the attack next morning--the artillery, which had now come up from Columbia, to open at 7 o'clock and fire 100 rounds to the gun, and at 9 a general charge to be made by the entire army.

At 3 p. m. December 1 we moved across Harpeth River to the right of Franklin, and the next morning at daylight went forward on the pike toward Nashville, and when in a few miles of the city turned across to the Granny White pike, where we bivouacked, with skirmishers in front. Here we remained till the 4th, and then, our skirmish line having been pressed up as near the enemy's position as possible, my command was put in line near Gales' house, on the left of the Granny White pike and in the center of the corps. This line, after being entrenched, was abandoned on the night of the 10th and another adopted, and on the morning of the 15th my troops, then on the extreme left, were withdrawn to the neighborhood of Compton's house and there put in bivouac, and the space vacated filled by Major-General Loring extending to the left nearly to the Hillsborough pike.

46 R R-VOL XLV, PT I