off from a station where it had stopped and left one prisoner behind. He was apprehended and sent on to Mobile where they were all turned over to the military authority there.

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

JOHN ADAMS,

Captain, C. S. Army, Commanding.

CORINTH, April 18, 1862.

Major GEORGE G. GARNER, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Upon the morning of the 17th instant I was detailed as a bearer of a flag of truce to the enemy by order of Lieutenant-Colonel Marrast, commanding First Brigade, General Wither's division. According to instructions I reported immediately to Colonel Marrast at the hospital known as Mickey's and there received dispatches from General Beauregard to General Buell. A Federal surgeon, Doctor Bumbaugh, of the Twenty-fifth Missouri Regiment, accompanied me by Colonel Marrast's order. I found the line of the enemy's pickets to run not parallel with but at right angles to ours about half a mile northeast from the neutral hospital. As I approached the lines my escort was halted and I rode to the pickets. Lieutenant Wickliffe, Second Kentucky Cavalry, was present. He asked me for my dispatches and I replied that my orders were to deliver them either to General Buell or to one of his staff. Upon that he took an officer in fatigue uniform aside and conferred with himabout five minutes, when he returned and said that he would send for General Buell and dispatched a sergeant within the lines. In about half an hour the messenger returned with General McCook and staff who asked for the dispatches. I told him my orders, lines, but said that he would send them to General Buell. I then asked who was the ranking officer present and was informed that General McCook was and I placed the package in his hands. He sent it in immediately by a sergeant of his escort, remarking that if I had been there a little sooner I could have seen General Buell himself.

During the absence of the messenger much conversation was held between the various officers present and myself, the main points of which I will detail. General McCook asked me if we had possession of the body of General A. S. Johnston. I told him we certainly had. He then said that an officer was found dead on the field who was said by many to be General Johnston. He knew said officer to have been of high rank because he had a star on the collar of his coat. I reassured him that we certainly had the body of General Johnston, but did not correct his mistake in regard to the insignia of rank of the officer found except so far as to assure him that the body of no officer of even considerable rank in our army had been left in their possession. He seemed satisfied with the candor of my replies. He then asked me where and how was General Prentiss and remarked with much profanity thould keep him and his brigade, and that they had many generals of the same kind whom he wished we had. He expressed great surprise at the manner in which our army was armed, saying that he expected to meet flint-lock muskets and found instead the finest minie rifles and European Enfield rifles with far finer ordnance than they had. Upon his suggestion that the Nashville had brought these in I replied that the Nashville had not, but that many other vessels had. He asked where the Nashville was now. I replied