bearer of the Eighth and Nineteenth Arkansas Battery,and Companies A, F, and D of that regiment unquestionably captured their guns and most of the men belonging to the battery some time before the arrival of any support the right,as is evidenced by accompanying statements of Captains North and Harter and Lieutenants Kuder and King, of the Seventy-fourth Indiana, and their men. I desire to direct the especial attention of the general commanding to these statements in order that he may claim for and assert for the gallant offices and men deserved and hard-won credit, without, however, desiring in the least degree to detract from the merits of the troops of any other command, least of all of the gallant soldiers of the Second Division, who, from the battle of Shiloh down to the present time, have again and again given the highest proofs of courage and heroism. But on September 1 it was the terrible yet happy fortune of the Third Brigade to meet the enemy in his strongest position and break his lines under the heaviest fire, as the list of casualties abundantly proves. It is, therefore, but simple justice to the living as well as dead heroes of the Third Brigade that the chiefest honors of the sanguinary contest of that day should be awarded them. Certainly the Second Division won glory enough even on that day not to deprive their brothers in arms of any which properly belongs to them. The battle,so far as the Third Brigade was concerned, lasted but little over thirty minutes. It went into action with 1,075 muskets and 64 field and commissioned officers. It lost during the fight 3 officers and 72 enlisted men killed, and 18 officers and 237 enlisted men wounded. Total killed, 75; wounded, 255. Total loss, 330, or a little more than 30 per cent. of our force engaged. These figures of themselves, more eloquently than words, proclaim the heroism of the men and the terrible character of the contest. A full and complete list of the casualties* accompanies this report, and I will only add that a very considerable portion of the wounds are reported by the surgeons as mortal and a very large proportion as very severe, whilst very many who were slightly hurt, I am informed by the regimental commandants, have not been reported at all. With few exceptions all the command behaved so gallantly that it almost seems individuals to mention especially the bearing of any one by name, and yet I feel that it is but an act of justice to make particular mention of the splendid courage of Colonel Choate, commanding Thirty-eighth Ohio, who was severely wounded while in the act of raising the colors of his regiment from the ground, where the had fallen in consequence of the wounding of his color bearer. With so gallant a leader it is not strange his regiment should have done so nobly. Major Wilson, commanding Fourteenth Ohio, was severely wounded at almost the beginning of the engagement whilst gallantly urging his brave men forward by both voice and example. His place was fortunately filled by Captain George W. Kirk and Adjutant Newton, than whom no better or braver men live. Major Morgan, commanding Seventy-fourth Indiana, was everywhere encouraging his men and sharing equally with them the dangers of the battle.

Colonel Haysc, commanding Tenth Kentucky, gallantly assisted by Lieutenant-Colonel Wharton and Major Davidson, showed himself to be among the bravest of the brave, and, with his command, was among the first to reach the enemy's works. The amputated

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*Omitted.

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