Numbers 248. Report of Colonel Ellison Capers, Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry, of operations September 29-December 2, 1864.

CHARLESTON, S. C., January 4, 1865.

CAPTAIN: I embrace this opportunity to forward a report of the Twenty-fourth Regiment South Carolina Volunteers in the recent campaign from Palmetto, Ga., to Franklin, Tenn., including the battle at the latter place.

The losses sustained by the regiment at Franklin, together with the death of General Gist and the wounding of the adjutant-general of the brigade, Major B. Burgh Smith, and the terrible disaster which has since befallen the army at Nashville, make an apprehensive that no official report may be made or called for, and I will send this by the earliest opportunity and request that it be forwarded to the headquarters of the army at once, and a copy kept at brigade headquarters.

On the 29th of September last we broke camp at Palmetto and marched toward the Chattahoochee on the Phillips' Ferry road. Lieutenant-General Hardee having left the army, his corps was commanded by Major-General Cheatham, General Gist commanding Cheatham's division, and Colonel Capers, Twenty-fourth South Carolina Volunteers, commanding Gist's brigade. The brigade was composed of the Sixteenth and Twenty-fourth South Carolina, the Forty-sixth Georgia, and the Eighth Georgia Battalion. We crossed the Chattahoochee at Phillips' Ferry and camped the night of the 29th in line of battle on the west bank. Turning north on the 30th, we marched ten miles and bivouacked on the Villa Rica and Campbellton road, the line facing the State railroad.

On the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of October the march was continued beyond Powder Springs, camping on the road to Lost Mountain on the 4th and 5th. While here we were engaged in entrenching a strong position, facing east and running parallel, for the most part, with the road, while Stewart's corps was at work breaking up the railroad north of Marietta. Early on the 6th, after a dreadful night of storm of rain, from which the men suffered very much, we broke up our line and marched in the rain and mud on the Dallas road, continuing the march on the 7th, 8th, and 9th, through Van Wert, Cedartown, and Cave Springs, to Coosaville, on the Coosa River. The command crossed the Coosa on the 10th, and turning north we camped in the beautiful valley of the Armuchee on the 11th. On the 12th and 13th the march was pressed through Sugar Valley Post Office to Dalton, arriving before Dalton at 1 p. m. on the 13th, after a forced march of seventeen miles. From Palmetto to Dalton the regiment had marched 157 miles, marching every day, except the two days spent in fortifying the line on the Powder Springs and Lost Mountain road. General Hood's summons to the fort at Dalton was refused, and our division, now commanded by Major General John C. Brown, was ordered to carry it by assault. The fort was a square redoubt, surrounded by a deep ditch, and situated on a hill just east of the depot and commanding the business part of the town; it inclosed a large store-house, and was defended by a complement of artillery and infantry. A hill immediately south and east of the fort commanded it, and General Brown moved his division across the open fields toward this hill, when a number of white flags were raised on the fort. The officer commanding had supposed the summons of General Hood to be one of General Forrest's efforts to capture him, but the display of our force and the evident purpose to place our artillery on the hill that