[CHAP. XXXII.

Tennessee], assigned to duty on my staff, who rendered most efficient aid in carrying out my orders and in rallying and cheering the men by their own example of personal daring and valor. Lieutenant Rodgers had a horse killed under him.

Major E. A. Beecher, brigade quartermaster, by his attention to the removal of the wounded from the field, the burying of the dead, and the gathering up of the guns and ammunition scattered upon it, and his efficiency up of the guns and ammunition scattered upon it, and his efficiency in every way necessary to promote the interests of the command, is entitled to special commendation.

Accompanying this you will find a report* of the killed, wounded, and missing in this command, as also the separate reports of Colonel W. H. Young, commanding Ninth Texas Infantry, and senior Captain R. F. Lanier, commanding Thirteenth Tennessee Regiment, to which you are respectfully referred.

Respectfully,

A. J. VAUGHAN, JR.,

Senior Colonel, Commanding Brigade.

Captain JOHN INGRAM,

Actg. Asst. Adjt. Gen., First Div., Polk's Corps, Army of Tenn.

Numbers 213. Report of Captain R. F. Lanier, Thirteenth Tennessee Infantry.

On the morning of December 31, 1862, about 6.30 o'clock Lieutenant Colonel William E. Morgan, commanding Thirteenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, had the regiment formed to the right of the Triune road, upon which road the left of the brigade rested. We remained in line but a short while, when we were ordered forward to the support of Brigadier-General Gardner's S. A. M. Wood's brigade,# which was then engaging the enemy in a wood on the far side of a corn-field immediately in our front. We marched boldly forward until within 100 yards of the wood, when we were ordered to halt and lie down, as we had come under the enemy's fire. We remained in this position but a few minutes when the line in our front came retreating back, and we were ordered to rise and move forward, which the men did with a yell. Here we were under a galling fire, and I regret to state that Lieutenant Colonel William E. Morgan and Major P. H. Cole were mortally wounded, and many of our men were killed and wounded before we entered the woods, but our gallant men did not falter, but rushed forward with a shout and entered the woods, driving the enemy before them and forcing him to leave a steel piece of artillery, which he had used with terrible effect upon us. We continued advancing until ordered by Colonel Vaughan, commanding brigade, to retire, caused by a terrible cross-fire from the right. We fell back beyond the field, and quickly reformed the regiment and moved by the left flank up the Triune road, where we were supplied with ammunition, and moved by the right flank in line of battle to the left of Brigadier-General Maney, in an open field, where we were ordered to halt and lie down to protect us from the terrible shelling from the enemy's battery on our right. From this position we moved forward across the Wilkinson pike and

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*Embodied in Numbers 191, p. 676.

#Gardner was relieved from duty with the Army of Tennessee, December 14, 1862.

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