Numbers 76. Reports of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas H. Hubbard, Thirtieth Maine Infantry.

HDQRS. THIRTIETH MAINE VOLUNTEER INFANTRY,
Grand Ecore, La., April 18, 1864.

GENERAL: An extra copy of my return of killed, wounded, and missing from this regiment lost in battles of April 8 and 9 has been made for your office, and I have the honor to transmit the same, with the subjoined brief account of the part which this regiment bore in these engagements.* On the 7th of April, when 15 miles north of Natchitoches, this regiment was detached from the main column as rear guard to the supply trains of the First Division, Nineteenth Army Corps. After a tedious march in a drenching rain-storm, and during the last three hours over muddy and uneven roads and in utter darkness, a part of the train became mired, and at 10.30 p. m. the regiment was compelled to bivouac in the woods 7 miles in rear of the troops of the division. At 6.30 a. m. of the 8th, thee march was resumed, and at 3.30 p. m. of the same day, having marched 18 miles, the regiment joined its brigade, which had been in camp nearly two hours at Mill Springs, 11 miles northwest of Pleasant Hill. At 4 p. m. of the same day, the regiment being much fatigued, received orders to prepare to move forward at once, and at 4.45 commenced a rapid march toward Sabine Cross-Roads, near Mansfield. At this time the firing of artillery and musketry, which had been heard at intervals during the day, was heavy and continuous in our front. At 6 p. m. we had marched a distance of nearly 6 miles from the last halting ground, and reached the theater of the engagement between Lee's cavalry and the Thirteenth Army Corps of the Union forces and the troops of the enemy under Taylor, Green, and Mouton. The cavalry and Thirteenth Corps had been engaged with superior forces, and were very much shattered. The cavalry trains and artillery had been taken by the enemy, and the cavalry with its immediate infantry supports driven back in confusion. My regiment, passing at double-quick step through a road crowded with retreating troops and trains, filed to the let and formed line of battle under fire in a pine wood near the summit of a hill and in rear of a large open field. The regiment was held at first as reserve of the Third Brigade, but was almost immediately moved forward and to the left to assist in checking an attempted movement of the enemy upon the left flank of the division; here the enemy's fire was quite galling. Major Whitman, while dressing the ranks upon the front and left, was wounded, and here we met with nearly all the loss suffered in this action. The enemy was checked chiefly by thee fire of the other regiments of the division, and at 8 p. m. my regiment, without having delivered a full volley, was moved to the right, rested upon the main road, and lay under arms awaiting orders. The loss of the regiment in this action, as will appear by the inclosed list, was 1 commissioned officer wounded, 2 enlisted men killed, 7 enlisted men wounded, and 42 enlisted men missing. The missing men fell out from exhaustion before reaching the field of battle, and were probably captured when our forces had retreated.

At midnight of the 8th, the regiment took up the line of march with the division, and at 9 p. m. of the 9th had reached Pleasant

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*Casualties embodied in table, p. 260.

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