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721 Series I Volume XXIV-I Serial 36 - Vicksburg Part I

Page 721 Chapter XXXVI. ENGAGEMENT AT RAYMOND, MISS.

I herewith submit the report of my subordinate officers, with accurate lists of the casualties attending the campaign.

Respectfully,

JOHN D. STEVENSON,

Brigadier General, Comdg. THIRD Brigadier, THIRD Div., SEVENTEENTH Army Corps.

Major R. R. TOWNES,

Assistant Adjutant-General.


Numbers 7. Report of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Campbell, Eighty-first Illinois Infantry, including operations to July 4. HDQRS. EIGHTY-FIRST REGIMENT ILLINOIS VOLUNTEERS, Vicksburg, MISS., July 9, 1863.

SIR: In compliance with your order directed to me, dated July 7, 1863, I have the honor to report that on May 12 we met the enemy in a ravine, about 1 mile south of Raymond. The THIRD Brigade was thrown out on the right and formed in line of battle, the Eighty-first Regiment being placed on the left of the brigade, and in this position we marched forward through almost impenetrable brushwood and undergrowth. We met the enemy in the bottom of the ravine and drove them, after a short and spirited fight of thirty minutes. The enemy retreated and reformed on the top of the hill in an open field, being protected from our right partly by the intervening timber. My command was marched by the right flank until it came to the opening on the right, where the enemy was discovered to them. Here a sharp fight took place, which lasted some FIFTY or sixty minutes, and resulted in driving the enemy from the hill, and then commenced the final retreat. My command then marched forward in connection with the remainder of the brigade on the open ground and through the brushwood to the town of Raymond, where we encamped for the night. The utmost coolness and determined bravery was displayed on the occasion of this battle by the men and officers of this regiment, there being but one instance of objectionable conduct-that of Captain Samuel Pyle, who has since been permitted to resign.

On May 14, after severe marching, our army met the enemy at Jackson, our brigade being deployed in line of battle on the left. My command marched in this position for several miles through mud and rain and almost impenetrable thickets until we came to the town of Jackson. We did not meet the enemy, he having left the field in time to evade our pursuit. We encamped with the remainder of the brigade in the suburbs of the town.

On May 16, we again met the enemy at Champion's Hill, or Baker's Creek, our regiment being on the right of the brigade. In this position we marched through fields and over ditches, fences, through woods, until we met the enemy, under the protection of their batteries, and, while the Eighth Illinois and Thirty-SECOND Ohio charged and took a battery, my command charged another battery still father to the right, and drove it, together with a strong support not less than double our number. After about an hour's hard fighting, we drove them from the field. We were then ordered to fall back. Our skirmishers, with an additional squad of men under the command of Lieutenant Grammar, Company B. brought the batteries taken by our brigade off the field, but were again put in line of battle and pursued the retreating enemy.

46 R R-VOL XXIV, PT. I


Page 721 Chapter XXXVI. ENGAGEMENT AT RAYMOND, MISS.