[CHAP. XXXV.

Numbers 37. Reports of Colonel Thomas E. Rose, Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding Regiment and Second Brigade.

HDQRS. SEVENTY-SEVENTH Regiment PENNSYLVANIA VOLS.,
In Camp at Tullahoma, July 6, 1863.

CAPTAIN: In compliance with orders from General Johnson, dated July 5, 1863, received to-day, I submit the following report of the operations of my regiment on the 24th and 25th of June, 1863, which is as follows:

At Murfreesborough, Tenn., 24, 1863, I received orders to break up my camp at 4 a.m., and march toward Shelbyville, Tenn., on the Shelbyville turnpike.

We broke up our camp as ordered, and marched out about 6 a.m., and continued on the Shelbyville road until we came to the Wartrace road. We left the turnpike and continued on a dirt road through Millersburg toward Wartrace until we arrived at Liberty Gap, at which place we arrived, after a toilsome march through the mud, at about 3 p.m. At this time the enemy's pickets were encountered by General Willich's brigade, which was in advance of our own. The firing soon became quite spirited, and finally assumed the form of a skirmish, when the Twenty-ninth Regiment Indiana Volunteers, of our own brigade, was ordered forward to try and flank the enemy, which order was promptly and spiritedly executed. In a few minutes after, I received orders to move up for the same purpose. I immediately moved up in column by company to the main entrance of the gap, where the enemy were posted, and then, piloted by Lieutenant Sheets, of General Johnson's staff, moved up on the opposite slope of a ravine which extended around the elliptical base of the hill on which the left wing of the enemy was posted. I proceeded along this ravine for several hundred yards under a sharp fire from the enemy's sharpshooters, which did us but little damage, until I had gained what was deemed a proper position, when I was ordered by Colonel Miller, now commanding the brigade, to move directly on the enemy, who was posted on a hill of from 80 to 100 feet elevation, on the opposite side of the ravine, which ravine was about 300 yards wide, quite level and muddy. I at once formed line of battle, and moved half way across the ravine, throwing two companies of skirmishers nearly to the foot of the hill, when I was directed by one of General Willich's aides that I was not far enough to the right to co-operate properly with his brigade. I informed him that I was acting under orders from Colonel Miller, to whom I directed him to go and bring me further instructions. He immediately returned with an order for me to move about 150 yards to the right, and then, as before, move up the hill against the enemy. I did as I was commanded, and found the hill very steep, so much so that we were obliged to scramble up by laying hold of the bushes and saplings in order to effect progress; in fact, it was equal to scaling the Heights of Abraham, but the enemy did not offer as much resistance as I had expected from the fire that he had kept up on my regiment from the time we ad first approached the gap; for while we scrambled up one side of the hill he scrambled down on the other in great confusion, leaving his camps without attempting to move anything.

We pursued the enemy over the hills and up through the gap for about a mile, as nearly as I can judge, when we were halted by order of General Johnson, and relieved by the Third Brigade. We then went