commanding the escort in arrest for neglecting to take possession of said papers, and have no doubt that he deserves to be punished for carelessness and inefficiency; for the result of his operations in the woodyard, it seems to me, proves hi to be both careless and inefficient.

I have the honor to be, colonel, respectfully, your obedient servant,

HUGH CAMERON,

Lieutenant Colonel Second Arkansas Cavalry, Commanding Fourth Brigade.

Colonel JOHN E. PHELPS,

Second Arkansas Cavalry, Commanding Cavalry division.

FEBRUARY 10, 1865.-Affair near Triune, Tenn.

Report of Captain Robert H. Clinton, Tenth Tennessee Infantry.

NASHVILLE, TENN., February 12, 1865.

MAJOR: I have the honor to make the following report:

In obedience to orders received from Major-General rousseau, commanding military district, I proceeded on the 9th of February at 6 p. m. with a force of thirty-five men belonging to the Fourteenth Tennessee Cavalry (of Captain J. L. Poston' company) to the house of one Charles Luster, thirty miles south of Nashville, at which place, according to information, there was to be a ball at which some twenty guerrillas were to be present. Nine miles from this city, on the Nolensville pike, I searched the house of a widow named Patterson, whose son is a bushwhacker and said to be the leader of a gang infesting that immediate neighborhood. I found one man in bed. The guide knowing nothing of him, I did not think it necessary to arrest him. In searching the house the men found two shotguns, one Derringer pistol, and one carbine. I ordered them to be destroyed. They were loaded and ready for use. I then proceeded on the march passing through Truine at 11.30 p. m., arriving at Luster's house at 12.40 a. m. A quarter of a mile from the house I halted the command and dismounted, leaving ten men to hold the horses; with the other twenty-five I proceeded across the fields, and when within fifty yards of the house I divided the command, sending twelve men under Captain Poston to the left. With the other thirteen I went to the right with orders to form a circle around the house upon reaching it. When within about twenty steps of the house I discovered some eight or ten negroes around a fire. One of them ran from the fire to the house to give the alarm, hallowing. "The soldiers are coming!" I had previously given orders for the men not to fire unless we were fired on. Notwithstanding that the negro had given the alarm we were so close to the house that they had not time to make their escape before we had we had it surrounded. They were commanded to come out. As soon as that command was given some one in the house fired upon two men who were trying to force open the back door, powder burning the face of one man and wounding the other slightly on the hand. Our men, seeing them rush out of the house, breaking through our lines, fired upon those who were trying to make their escape, and I learned the next morning that four of them were killed on the spot, and one wounded died subsequently. By morning all the dead were conveyed away, only one being found, and he was discovered on an adjacent hill a quarter of a mile from the house. I believe that the citizens had the dead and wounded conveyed away in order to conceal