battery severely, but every carriage being kept at a long distance, they did no damage.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

M. VAN DEN CORPUT,

Captain.

Major J. J. REEVE,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Stevenson's Division.

Numbers 240.

Report of Lieutenant Colonel William R. Butler, Eighteenth Tennessee Infantry, commanding Eighteenth and Twenty-sixth Tennessee Infantry.

HDQRS. EIGHTEENTH AND TWENTY-SIXTH Tennessee,
Dalton, Ga., December 31, 1863.

CAPTAIN: I have the honor respectfully to submit the following report of the operations of the Eighteenth and Twenty-sixth Tennessee Volunteers in the late engagement at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain:

The regiment was on outpost duty guarding the western crest of Lookout Mountain from Wauhatchie to Nickajack Pass, a distance of 8 miles, at the commencement of the battle.

At 9 p.m., November 24, I received a dispatch from Brigadier-General Brown to the effect that our entire force had been withdrawn from Lookout Mountain and had retired to the east of Chattanooga Creek. Also ordered the concentration and withdrawal of my command by the McCullough road in the direction of Rossville, wagons to go out at Cooper's Gap and report to the railroad.

At 12 o'clock the command moved from Powell's Pass (at which point the companies were assembled) on the McCullough road, and rested an hour before daylight 2 1/2 miles south of Rossville.

We resumed the march at 8 o'clock on the morning of November 25, and reached the extreme right of the army on Missionary Ridge, and immediately in rear of Brown's brigade, at 3.30 p.m. the same day. I then dispatched General Brown the whereabouts of my command, subjecting it to his orders, in reply to which I as ordered to retain my position until further orders. Immediately after the reception of General Brown's order, General Cleburne came up and ordered me to move the command to the crest of the hill and in supporting distance of troops then engaged, exposing the command to the enemy's fire, and at which point Major W. H. Joyner was slightly wounded.

The command remained in this position until a few minutes after sunset, when I received an order from General Brown to move to the left and rejoin the brigade. Having moved some 350 yards, I received the intelligence that a point on the ridge still to our left had been carried by the enemy, and was ordered by an aide from General Brown to move directly to the rear and in the direction the brigade had taken.

Respectfully submitted.

W. R. BUTLER,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Comdg. 18th and 26th Tennessee Volunteers

Captain H. J. CHENEY,

Assistant Adjutant-General.