Numbers 2. Report of Lieutenant Colonel William E. Riley, Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry.

BURKESVILLE, April 19, 1863.

SIR: In pursuance of orders received from Major-General Wright, at 12 m. on the 17th instant, ordering me to move the Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry to this place (as soon as I could procure the rations required), I proceeded on the march with 150 men, as many men of my command as are equipped with arms at all serviceable, and encamped first night 12 miles out from Lebanon, on the Campbellsville pike, near Mrs. Saunders' residence. About daylight next morning we proceeded on the march to Columbia, which place we reached about 4 p. m. Here I found orders from Colonel Jacob, of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry, communicating orders of Major-General Wright to me to move my command to Creelsborough, and ascertain the force of the enemy at that point, and to come to this place. I found a squad of 55 men, of the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry, under Lieutenant Lippincott, who were ordered to report to me at Columbia.

In pursuance of these orders, I left 50 men to guard the wagon trains of the Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth, and Columbia, and proceeded at daylight on the march to Creelsborough, with 129 men of the Eleventh Kentucky and 30 of the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry. On arriving on a train leading into Grider's Creek, back of Mr. Grider's house, about 1 mile from Creelsborough, I called a halt, and detailed Lieutenants Debaun and Norton, of Company C, with 17 men, Lieutenants Purdy and Willemin, of Company G, with 16 men, and Lieutenants Taylor and Niemeyer, of Company H, with 10 men, total 43 men, all of the Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry, under the command of Captain Jacob Cozatt, of Company C, and dispatched them, on double-quick, on the road over the hill to Creelsborough. The balance of the command, consisting of a detachment of Company A, 25 men, under Captain J. G. Pond; also a detachment of Company B, 16 men, under Lieutenant Burgess; also a detachment of Company F, under Lieutenant Dickerson, numbering 24 men; also a detachment of Company D, numbering 13 men, under Lieutenants Robinson and Burton; a detachment of Company I, numbering 6 men, under Lieutenant String, and a detachment of Company [H], of the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry, under Lieutenant Lippincott, numbering 30 men, making in all 106 men. I moved with this detachment of my command down the said creek to the crossing of the road from Creelsborough up to the ferry, and thence down this road to Creelsborough.

As we were ascending the hill into Creelsborough, on double-quick, the rebel pickets fired on Captain Cozatt's detachment. This firing was the first notice the rebels who were in the town and rifling a store, had of our approach. There were from 60 to 70 rebels in and around the town. We were met on the brow of the hill by about 25 rebels, mounted and in arms, who rode up within 50 feet of us before they saw us or we them. The firing commenced instantly, and this firing was kept up for several minutes, when the rebels turned and fled down the road through Creelsborough. We pursued rapidly. In passing through the town we were fired upon from nearly every house and place of concealment. We, however, pressed the retreating [rebels] through the town, and I found here that both detachments of the command had gotten together, and were engaged in pursuing this detach