gade was ordered to recross the pike, and there bivouacked until morning . The brigade was hotly engaged for three hours. Regimental reports, which I have the honor herewith to transmit, have accurate lists of casualties and I refer you to them for particulars.

Commanders of regiments, offices, and soldiers did their duty gallantly, and their splendid conduct, repulsing the enemy when victoriously pursuing our disordered troops, contributed in no small measure to the successful result of the day.

My thanks are due to Lieutenants Sheets and Percival, of my staff, and the soldiers, of my escort, for their efficient services in the action.

I have the honor to be, captain, very respectfully,your obedient servant,

SAMUEL BEATTY,

Colonel, Comdg. Third Div., Left Wing, Fourteenth Army Corps.

Captain E. A. OTIS,

A. A. G., Third Div., Left Wing, Fourteenth Army Corps.

Numbers 149. Reports of Colonel Benjamin C. Grider, Ninth Kentucky Infantry,

commanding regiment and First Brigade.

IN CAMP, NEAR MURFREESBOROUGH, TENN.,

January 1, 1863.

LIEUTENANT: My regiment, the Ninth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, was early yesterday morning ordered on the south side of Stone's River, and formed in line of battle in the front line, and on the left of the Nineteenth Ohio Volunteers (Major Manderson). We had advanced a short distance down the river, when we were ordered to recross, to support our forces in the center and on the right, understanding that the enemy were driving them,and had turned our right, and probably gained our rear. We moved by the flank, and at a double-quick, to the Murfreesborough pike, and thence along that pike about a half mile to our rear, to a skirt of woods, through which we saw our men retreating, and heard that they had been before forced back through them. We formed on the pike, the Nineteenth Ohio on the right and the Ninth Kentucky on the left, the two composing the front line, supported by the Eleventh Kentucky, Major Mottley, and the Seventy-ninth Indiana, Colonel Knefler in the rear or second line.

As soon as our retreating troops cleared the woods, our front, the Nineteenth and Ninth, opened upon the enemy a cool, well-aimed, and deadly fire, which brought them to a stand. After a few such rounds we were ordered to advance, which the men promptly did with the alacrity and steadiness of veterans, gallantly led on by all their officers, driving the enemy with great slaughter for half a mile or more. Here, the ammunition of the front line beginning to fail, and the enemy's fire having almost ceased, we were ordered to open our lines for the reserve--the Eleventh Kentucky and the Seventy-ninth Indiana---to pass through, which they did in gallant style, seeing and hearing but little of the enemy for some hundreds of yards when they found him rallied; but again he was forced to yield to the well-directed fire and gallantry of the Eleventh Kentucky and Seventy-ninth Indiana, and