cult country to operate in. Never did people stand in great need of protection. They have battled manfully against the most unscrupulous foe that civilized has ever witnessed. They have shut out from all communication with anybody but their enemies for a year and a half, and yet they stand firm and true. If such merit is not to be rewarded, if such citizens are not to receive protection, then is their case a deplorable one indeed.

I am, sir, your most obedient servant,

A. D. STREIGHT,

Colonel Fifty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteers.

Captain W. H. SCHLATER, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 2.

Report of Captain Stephen C. Writer, First Ohio Cavalry.

DECATUR, ALA., July 16, 1862.

SIR: I should have sent you the following official information with regard to my late expedition sooner, but I did not until this morning learn the full details from some of my men who were detained with the infantry which accompanied us at the time of starting.

Late on Friday evening of the 11th, Colonel Streight, of the Fifty-first Indiana Regiment, informed me that he had received permission from General Buell to march his regiment 24 miles into the hills and remain for days for the purpose of recruiting its numbers, as many had already come in and many more would come in were they protected from the bushwhackers in their neighborhood, and also received permission from the general to take any cavalry he might find upon this side of the river.

We left Decatur the following morning at sunrise and went out 6 miles. Colonel Streight then ordered that I should take five of the new recruits which had accompanied us and escort them through to Colonel Davis', 17 miles farther on, with my cavalry, which consisted of 1 sergeant, 2 corporals, and 11 privates, carrying in all 12 guns. I was instructed when I arrived at Colonel Davis' to impress any number of horses that they might require to ride all through the country to inform Union men wishing to join our army that he was there ready to receive them, they to go on that night and require a change of horses, it being considered too hard a day's work to use the horses they had that day ridden through.

At the time of parting with Colonel Streight he told me that his regiment would undoubtedly come up with me that night; but if it did not, and I considered it dangerous to remain there alone, to fall back upon his regiment.

I arrived near Colonel Davis' all safe, put out pickets, fed horses, and sent forward three men and procured horses for three others. I supposed at the time I reached Colonel Davis' the infantry was 8 or 10 miles back. The place we selected of feed was a farm-yard, well fortified by corn cribs, stables, hen-houses, and pig-pens, and might easily have been held had I had any respectable number of men. I suppose I had been there altogether two and a half hours when I heard an alarm firing from our rear pickets. We immediately mounted our horses, rode out to the pickets, and found the enemy were approaching us with some force