ticularly conspicuous in rallying and leading the troops where danger was thickest. To him I am also indebted for the prompt attention of my order to bring from the field the captured artillery. Captain E. T. Sykes, assistant adjutant-general on Brigadier-General Walthall's staff, temporarily on duty with me, rendered very efficient service throughout the entire engagement. His activity, courage, and intelligence rendered his services invaluable on a field so extended and in a conflict so protracted. Lieutenant J. H. Wood, also ordnance officer of Walthall's brigade, performed his duty with the greatest promptness, displaying much good sense and judgment in conforming the movements of his train to those of the troops.

In endeavoring to give a simple statement of the part taken by the troops under my command in this great engagement, the capture of several batteries has been mentioned in passing. I have abstained from making a statement of the number or kind of pieces taken, for the simple reason that I did not stop to count them or to examine their caliber. The Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth, and Thirtieth Mississippi, all participating (but the Thirtieth suffering more severely than the others), captured a battery, of from four to six guns, near a log-cabin in the edge of the cedars, on the right of the Wilkinson pike, and not far from a well used by the enemy in procuring their water on the night previous to the battle. This battery included a small iron rifled piece, somewhat detached from, and a short distance to, the right of the other pieces, and lay in front of the Twenty-ninth Mississippi, which took it. In the log-cabins, and strongly supporting the battery, was a company of sharpshooters, all captured by the Twenty-seventh Mississippi. Farther to the left was a battery, nearer the Wilkinson pike, from which the enemy were driven by the Twenty-fourth Mississippi, supported by the Forty-fifth Alabama. Some 15 or 20 prisoners were here captured at the pieces. Another battery was posted still farther to the left, and nearer the Wilkinson pike, close by which the left of the Forty-fifth Alabama (my left regiment) passed simultaneously with the right of Colonel Manigault. This battery, however, was silenced a few moments before we reached it-I think by one of our batteries playing from a direction where I supposed Colonel Manigault's left to be at the time his right reached the battery simultaneously with my left. As the batteries immediately in my front were being passed, I directed Captain May, of my staff, to have the pieces taken to the rear with as little delay as possible. He subsequently reported to me that he delivered to the chief of ordnance in Murfreesborough eight pieces of different caliber; and I afterward learned that there were two or three pieces taken from the same part of the field by other parties, whose names I could not learn.

Our loss in this engagement was heavy, as the long list of killed and wounded will show. An infant nation struggling for existence, and just now fairly disengaging itself from the oppressor's grasp, pauses in the strife to drop a sympathetic tear over the grave of its gallant dead, and long after that nation shall have risen to manhood among great powers of earth, will her free sons and daughters cherish and revere the names and memories of those who fell upon the bloody plains of Murfreesborough.

The loss of this brigade was 766, as follows: Killed, 119; wounded, 584; missing, 63.

I am, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

PATTON ANDERSON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.