HEADQUARTERS HEBERT'S BRIGADE,
June 20, 1863.

Major S. CROOM,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Forney's Division:

MAJOR: At about 3.15 o'clock this morning the enemy opened with his artillery along my line, and kept up to until 7 o'clock the heaviest and most rapid cannonading we have yet undergone. The effect on our line has not yet been ascertained, and his artillery still keeps up a fire. Colonel O. S. Holland, commanding the Thirty-seventh Mississippi Regiment, r eports that one trussell, sent by Captain Wintter, engineer officers, last night as superintendent of works, has gone over to the enemy. Colonel Holland also reports that Lieutenant Ingersoll, of the Eleventh Illinois, told a lieutenant of the Missouri regiment, on the left of the Thirty-seventh, that Major-General Loring had made an attack yesterday at Baker's Creek, but had fallen back.

I am, major, very respectfully,

LOUIS HEBERT,

Brigadier-General.

[24.]

JACKSON, June 20, 1863.

General GARDNER:

General Taylor intended to attack the enemy opposite Port Hudson on night of 15th and attempt to send cattle across the river. Waddell, your leatest courier, is reported captured. It is important to keep Banks' army occupied. Hold out as long as you can, and then withdraw or force your way out in any direction. I regret I can do nothing to relieve you, but hope General Taylor may do something.

J. E. JOHNSTON.

[26.]

SHELBYVILLE, June 22, 1863.

[General J. E. JOHNSTON:]

MY DEAR GENERAL: Since parting with you I have at no time beenw ell enough until now to say I was fit for duty, though I have not given up. The annyances of those boils, insted of indicating returning health, was only the precursor of a general breakdown. Indeed, the long-continued exictement of mind and body to which, you are aware, I have been subjected, on private as well as public subjects, well night prostrated me, and when relieved by the arrival of friend Mackall and the departure of my invalid wife, the prostration very naturally resulted in disease; but I am again well. My telegrams have kept you pretty well advised of what was going on here. Information in the last three days confirms my previous impressions about the movements of troops. I cannot learn that any have left Murfreesborough or that Rosecrans is at all reduced. He has called in al forced he had at outposts, escept at Franklin, Triune, and Readyville; has some from Kentucky, and all the prisoners taken at Thompson's Station and Brentwood are returned. The largest portion of Burnside's forces from Kentucky have undoubtedly gone to Grant. All the fragments from the Northwest, and especially from Missouri, have also gone that way. this we have from an Englishman just from Cairo. The West Tennessee has been entirely abandoned, except a very small force at Memphis. From all these forces some 30,000 men have been