third, lately promoted from my staff, deserves great credit for the manner in which he fought a part of his regiment.

Major Brown, of the Fifteenth, in command of the pickets (who was also wounded), behaved with great coolness and bravery. I am much indebted to my staff, First Lieutenant William E. Sturgis, Second Regiment New Jersey Volunteers, acting assistant adjutant-general; First Lieutenant J. T. Whitehead, quartermaster Second Regiment New Jersey Volunteers, acting aide-de-camp, and Second Lieutenant H. H. Goldsmith, Twenty-third Regiment New Jersey Volunteers, acting aide-de-camp, for their bravery and coolness in transmitting my orders with promptness and precision to different parts of the field and in the thickest of the fight.

Accompanying please find a list of the killed, wounded, and missing.*

I am, very respectfully, &c.,

A. T. A. TORBERT,

Captain, U. S. Army, Colonel Commanding Brigade.

Captain READ,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 256. Report of Brigadier General Albion P. Howe, U. S. Army, commanding Second Division.

HDQRS. SECOND DIVISION, SIXTH ARMY CORPS, Camp on the Rappahannock, December 23, 1862.

MAJOR: In obedience to instructions from the headquarters of the Sixth Corps, I have the honor to report the operations of the division under my command while on the south bank of the Rappahannock, between the 12th and 15th instant.

The division had with it on the morning of the 12th the First Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Pratt; the Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel H. Whiting, Second Vermont; the Third Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Francis L. Winton (wounded, and relieved on the 13th by Brigadier-General Neill); two regular batteries and two volunteer batteries. The division crossed the river early on the morning of the 12th at the lower pontoon bridges, and formed on the plateau immediately in front, about 400 yards from the river. General Pratt's brigade, in the front line, deployed in line of battle nearly parallel to the line of the river, with batteries on its right and left and intermediate. General Winton's brigade, in rear of General Pratt's, deployed in line of battle, and Colonel Whiting's brigade in rear of General Vinton's, in line of battalion, in column.

About 10 a. m. the division advanced and occupied the ridge of the plateau, about half the distance from the river to the range of heights in front, the right of the division resting on Deep Creek; the front line nearly parallel with the course of the river, and on the opposite side of the Richmond and Fredericksburg road from the river, the other two lines holding the same relative position as before the advance. The base of the heights from the left of the front line of the division was some 1,500 yards, and in front of the right they receded somewhat more, the ground between the front line and the base of the hills sloping gently toward the hills, affording easy and ready movement for infantry

---------------

*Embodied in revised statement, p. 140.

---------------

34 R R-VOL XXI