major-general commanding Department and Army of the Tennessee, for the troops to be prepared for a twenty days' march, and subsistence independent of railroad communications. The command was thus employed until the 23rd of May. While at this place the Third Brigade and Battery B, First Michigan Light Artillery, were detached from this command and ordered to Rome, Ga., to relieve a division of the Fourteenth Army Corps, Department of the Cumberland, and the officers and men of Battery I, First Missouri Light Artillery, were sent North to be mustered out of service, by reason of expiration of term of service, the guns being turned over to the ordnance department. The non-veterans of the Second Iowa Infantry were also sent to Pulaski, Tenn., for the same purpose, the remainder of this regiment being consolidated into six companies. At 1 p. m., May 23, the command moved forward, following the Fifteenth Army Corps, crossing the Etowah, and thence in a direction south-southwest, making slow and irregular marches; passed through Van Wert, and arrived at Dallas, Ga., at 4 p. m. May 26, taking a position south of town, fronting the east, and picketing the hills in front, throwing one regiment down to the forks of the Villa Rica and Dallas road. Up to this time but slight opposition had been met with from the enemy, but at an early hour on the morning of the 27th of May a brisk skirmish fire was opened on both sides, and continued without abatement during the entire day. After much maneuvering and a gradual pressure and driving back of the enemy's skirmishers, this division, at dark of this day, occupied two ridges from which the enemy had been forced, separated by a ravine, and about 100 yards apart. During the night each of these elevations were fortified and occupied by the First Brigade, the first line by the Sixty-sixth Indiana and Second Iowa, the former on the right, with four guns of Battery H, First Missouri Light Artillery, between these regiments; the second line by the Fifty-second Illinois and Seventh Iowa, former on the right, with one section of said battery between them, both lines connecting with troops of the Fifteenth Corps on their right, and Fourth Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, on their left, the Second Brigade being held in reserve.

At daybreak, May 28, the skirmishing opened briskly, and continued, without abatement until about 4 p. m., when the enemy made a desperate charge along the entire front, pressing forward within ten paces of our works, but were met with a determination equal, if not superior, to their own, and, broken by a terrific fire of musketry and artillery, at last fled in utter rout and panic, having continued their fruitless but desperate assault just twenty-eight minutes. Upon the skirmishers being sent to the front the bodies of 53 dead rebels were counted in front of the works of this division. During this engagement the troops behaved with their usual gallantry. Battery H did fine execution during the assault, using grape and canister almost exclusively, and firing with the utmost rapidity, sending death and consternation into the ranks of the foe. A contemplated movement of the troops of this army during the night was abandoned on account of the report that another assault upon our lines would be made at 12 midnight, but which was not attempted, and the command remained quietly in its works, with exception of continued skirmishing and relieving the regiments of the First Brigade in the first line by regiments from the Second Brigade until the evening of the 29th of May, when, as the troops of this command were about to withdraw from their works, in com-