into it with a determination to conquer or die; to be free or not to be at all. No encomium is too high, no honor too great for such a soldiery. However much of credit and glory may be given, and probably justly given, the leaders in our struggle, history will yet award the main honor where it is due-to the private soldier, who, without hope of reward, and with no other incentive than a consciousness of rectitude, has encountered all the hardships and suffered all the privations. Well has it been said, "The first monument our Confederacy rears, when our independence shall have been won, should be a lofty shaft, pure and spotless, bearing this inscription, 'To the unknown and unrecorded dead.'"

The members of my staff, arduously engaged in their several duties before, during, and since the prolonged engagement, are deserving a mention in this report. Lieutenant Colonels George G. Garner and G. W. Brent and Captain P. H. Thomson, adjutant and inspector general's department; First Lieutenants Towson Ellis and F. S. Parker [jr.], regular aides-de-camp; Lieutenant Colonel W. K. Beard, inspector-general; Lieutenant Colonel A. J. Hays, Provisional Army; Majors James Strawbridge, Louisiana infantry, and William Clare, late Seventh Alabama Volunteers, acting assistant inspectors-general; Lieutenant Colonel L. W. O'Bannon, chief quartermaster; Major M. B. McMicken, assistant quartermaster; Major J. J. Walker, chief commissary; Majors F. Molloy and G. M. Hillyer, assistants; Lieutenant Colonel H. Oladowski, chief of ordnance; Captains W. H. Warren and O. T. Gibbes, and Lieutenant W. F. Johnson, assistants; Captain S. W. Steele, acting chief engineer, and Lieutenants H. C. Force, A. H. Buchanan, and J. K. P. McFall [assistants]; Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Hallonquist, acting chief of artillery; First Lieutenant R. H. S. Thompson, assistant; Surg. A. J. Foard, medical director; Surg. E. A. Flewellen, assistant medical director; Actg. Surg. T. G. Richardson, attendant on myself, staff, and escort; Colonels David Urquhart, of Louisiana, J. Stoddard Johnston, of Kentucky, and G. Saint Leger Grenfell, of England (the two former volunteer aides, long on my staff), served me most efficiently. Major E. W. Baylor, assistant quartermaster; Major B. C. Kennedy, assistant commissary of subsistence, and Lieutenant William M. Bridges, aide-de-camp to the late Brigadier-General [J. K.] Duncan, reported just before the engagement and joined my staff, on which they served through the battle.

Colonel M. L. Clark, of the artillery (Provisional Army), being in Murfreesborough on temporary service, did me the favor to join and serve on my staff during the engagement.

His Excellency Isham G. Harris, Governor of Tennessee, and the Honorable Andrew Ewing, member of military court, volunteered their services and rendered me efficient aid, especially with the Tennessee troops, largely in the ascendant in this army. It is but due to a zealous and efficient laborer in our cause that I here bear testimony to the cordial support given me at all times since meeting him a year ago in West Tennessee by His Excellency Governor Harris. From the field of Shiloh, where he received in his arms the dying form of the lamented Johnston, to the last struggle at Murfreesborough, he has been one of us, and has shared all our privations and dangers, while giving us his personal and political influence with all the power he possessed at the head of the State government.

To the medical department of the army, under the able administration of Surgeon Foard, great credit is due for the success which attended their labors. Sharing none of the excitement and glory of the field, these officers in their labor of love devote themselves silently and assiduously to alleviate the sufferings of their brother soldiers at hours when others are seeking rest and repose.