accompanying reports, the Government may well confide. They are the men from whom our troops should at once be supplied with brigadier-generals; and justice to the brave men and officers of the regiments equally demand their promotion to give them and their regiments their proper leaders. Many captains and subalterns also showed great gallantry and capacity for superior commands. But, above all, the sturdy rank and file showed invincible fighting courage and stamina, worthy of a great and free nation, requiring only good officers, discipline, and instructions to make them equal, if not superior, to any troops in ancient or modern times. To them I offer my most heartfelt thanks and good wishes. Words of mine cannot add to the renown of our brave and patriotic officers and soldiers who fell on the field of honor, nor increase respect for their memory in the hearts of our countrymen.

The names of such men as Lieutenant Colonel J. P. Garesche, the pure and noble Christian gentleman and chivalric officer, who gave his life an early offering on the altar of his country's freedom; the gentle, true, and accomplished General Sill; the brave, ingenuous, and able Colonels Roberts, Milliken, Schaefer, McKee, Read, Forman, Fred. Jones, Hawkins, Kell, and the gallant and faithful Major Carpenter, of the Nineteenth Regulars, and many other field officers, will live in our country's history, as will those of many others of inferior rank, whose soldierly deeds on this memorable battle-field won for them the admiration of their companions, and will dwell in our memories in long future years, after God, in his mercy, shall have given us peace, and restored us to the bosom of our homes and families.

Simple justice to the gallant officers of my staff, the noble and lamented Lieutenant-Colonel Garesche, chief of staff; Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, chief quartermaster; Lieutenant-Colonel Simmons, Chief commissary; Major C. Goddard, senior aide-de-camp; Major Ralston Skinner, judge-advocate-general; Lieutenant Frank S. Bond, aide-de-camp of General Tyler; Captain Charles R. Thompson, my aide-de-camp; Lieutenant Byron Kirby, Sixth U. S. Infantry, aide-de-camp, who was wounded on the 31st; R. S. Thoms, esq., a member of the Cincinnati bar, who acted as volunteer aide-de-camp, behaved with distinguished gallantry; Colonel Barnett chief of artillery and ordnance; Captain J. H. Gilman, Nineteenth U. S. Infantry, inspector of artillery; Captain James Curtis, Fifteenth U. S. Infantry, assistant-inspector-general; Captain Wiles, Twenty-second Indiana, provost-marshal-general; Captain Michler, chief of Topographical Engineers; Captain Jesse Merrill, Signal Corps, whose corps behaved well; Captain Elmer Otis, Fourth Regular Cavalry, who commanded the courier line connecting the various headquarters most successfully, and who made a most opportune and brilliant charge on Wheeler's cavalry, routing a brigade and recapturing 300 of our prisoners; Lieutenant Edson, United States ordnance officer, who, during the battle of Wednesday, distributed ammunition under the fire of the enemy's batteries, and behaved bravely; Captain Hubbard and Lieutenant Newberry, who joined my staff on the field and acted as aides, rendered valuable service in carrying orders on the field; Lieutenant E. G. Roys, Fourth U. S. Cavalry, who commanded the escort of the headquarters train, and distinguished himself for gallantry and efficiency-all not only performed their appropriate duties to my entire satisfaction, but, accompanying me everywhere, carrying orders through the thickest of the fight, watching while thanks and the respect and gratitude of the army.

With all the facts of the battle fully before me, the relative numbers and positions of our troops and those of the rebels, the gallantry and