manding. As myself and my command are misrepresented therein, I call upon the major-general commanding to take such measures as may remedy the injustice done. It is certainly not just that a command that performed its part as well as mine did on the 27th ultimo should suffer at the hands of scribblers who were not on the ground and who were unacquainted with the facts.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WINF'D S. HANCOCK,

Major-General, Commanding Second Corps.

Since writing the within I find I have no copy of the Times. I will send one up as soon as I can get it; I have telegraphed for one.

WINF'D S. HANCOCK,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

[Marked extracts from The Philadelphia Inquirer.]

General Hancock moved out on the prescribed route and in proper time, so far as could be judged, to keep in line with Crawford, who had the left of the Fifth Corps. Nevertheless he got too far in advance, and about the middle of the afternoon General Gibbon, whose division was on the right, had his flank exposed in consequence of a gap between him and Crawford. The rebels, favored by their intimate knowledge of the country, and they must be old residents to have acquired any, at 4 o'clock had discovered the gap, and put Mahone's division of Hill's corps into it. At this time General Hancock had reached and had his line of battle formed across the Boydton plank road. At this moment, however, Mahone struck him heavily on his right flank, and he found himself at the same time immediately in front of a strong line of rebel works, heavily defended. The rebel cavalry simultaneously swept around his left and a column of them charged down the telegraphed road, which ran parallel with his line of battle, and cane into the Boydton plank road in his rear. Under circumstances like these even the splendid skill of Hancock and soldierly ability of Mott and Gibbon could avail but little. The corps was forced back, and for an hour and a half the contest was desperate and the safety of the corps for a moment or two was doubtful.

* * * * * * *

By far the largest proportion of the losses fell to the lot of the Second Corps. General Hancock succeeded in reforming his line by the time he had got abreast of Warren's left, and the rebels withdrawing there the matter ended for a time, the net result being that we lost our precarious hold on Boydton road.

* * * * * * *

On Tuesday night [October 25] the Second Division, Second Corps, Brigadier-General Gibbon, and the Third Division, Major-General Mott, were withdrawn from the trenches they had held so long, and the First Division, General Barlow, left alone upon the line all three divisions had previously occupied. To the First Division, however, was added other troops, and it was left more as a leaven to the mass of raw soldiers than with the intention that it should, unaided, hold that entire line.

* * * * * * *

Upon the Second Corps the rebels have made the only attack they have ventured upon during the day. A gap being between it and the