position the Ninth Wisconsin, but before the regiment had moved many steps in direction of the right wing the enemy appeared in great force on the left and in front of us, and we were ordered to remain in this position. Right in front of the Forty-third Illinois stood the Thirty-third Iowa in the first line of battle, pouring volley after volley into the thick masses of the enemy, when an officer of theirs regiment informed me that their ammunition was nearly expended. I moved forward to relieve them. After firing had lasted some half an hour the smoke became so dense, waking like a thick mass between the dark trees over the swampy ground, that it was impossible to see anything at a distance of 20 yards; and although not authorized to change the position of the regiment in the line of battle, I followed, under these circumstances, the demand move forward, loudly expressed by officers and men, and with a hearty cheer the Forty-third Illinois rushed forward through the smoke over the ground but lately occupied by the enemy's solid columns, now covered everywhere with his dead and wounded. We advanced several hundred yards, sometimes halting and firing and advancing again. We soon found that the enemy had entirely withdrawn, and then returned again to our former position in the main line of battle, when Colonel Engelmann ordered the regiment to move on in the direction of the river. We soon crossed the Saline and camped on the high ground north of the river, and the battle of Jenkins' Ferry was over.

But to show against what odds this battle was fought it is necessary to state here that the enemy, having driven General Banks back, had hurried part of his exultant force, flushed with victory, in forced marches from the banks of the Red River to the Ouachita, and following General Steele's army from there camp up with it on the 30th of April, while the greater part of our forces had already crossed the Saline River, and only General Salomon's division and a few regiments of General Thayer's remaining still on the south side of it.

Owing to the incessant rain during part of the 29th and the morning of the 30th, the roads in the Saline bottom had become almost impassable; our trains and artillery stuck in the muse and swamps along the road from the rear of General Salomon's division to the river for about 2 miles, and then if they did move it was but for a few paces, when they stuck again. General Kirby Smith commanded in person, hurling his solid columns on General Salomon's division and attacked furiously, but desperate as was the assault the enemy was repulsed with severe loss at every point. Every soldier (and this equally applies to the black as well as the shied) did his duty fully and nobly, not an inch of ground being yielded. When at length the enemy had been completely repulsed and the trains had moved across the Saline, then the troops, who till then held the battle-field, also crossed the river. Our loss in this battle was 700, while that of the enemy was frightful, amounting to over 2,000. We had in this battle not more than 4,000 men, while the enemy had, according to their statement, over 20,000 at and near the battle-field. Walker's division, which had been in the battles fought against Banks, and which had there borne a conspicuous and, for them, a glorious part, had been hurried from that victorious battle-field to one of still greater promise, for the total annihilation of General Steele's army was their object, which would at once have put them again in possession of all of Arkansas, but they were defeated under the very eye of Gen-