A great many of my command were affected by the hot sun and the dust and temporarily disabled. My loss in action during the expedition was as follows: Heckman's brigade, 1 officer killed, 3 officers wounded, 12 enlisted men killed and 97 wounded; Wistar's brigade, 3 enlisted men killed, 1 officer and 20 enlisted men wounded, and 2 enlisted men missing; Follett's battery, wounded, 6 enlisted men (1 mortally, since dead), 2 horses killed. Total loss in the division, 17 killed, 126 wounded, and 2 missing.

General Heckman and his brigade deserve special mention for their conduct on the 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th instant.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. WEITZEL,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Lieutenant Colonel N. BOWEN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Eighteenth Army Corps.

HDQRS. DEPT. OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, U. S. ENGINEER'S OFFICE, In the Field, May 22, 1864.

COLONEL: In answer to your note of yesterday I have to say the following, viz:

On the morning of the 16th instant my command consisted of Wistar's brigade of four regiments, the Eighth Maine, Twenty-first Connecticut, Ninety-eighth New York Volunteers, and Heckman's brigade of four regiments. The Eighth Maine, Twenty-first Connecticut, and Ninety-eighth New York were all attached to Heckman's brigade and under his immediate command. The whole of my command (eleven regiments) was stretched out in a singly line with no second line and reserve. My left rested on the maine turnpike road, and my right barely lapped over the direct road to camp, which I was ordered to cover. Between my right and the river, a distance fully three-quarters of a mile, was nothing but a line of cavalry vedettes, and in front of my right and these cavalry vedettes, was a large open plain in which 50,000 men could be massed. I represented the state of affairs repeatedly during hate thirty-six hours presented the state of affairs repeatedly during the thirty-six hours preceding the attack by the enemy. I was close up to the enemy's works. I was so impressed with my danger, that without any orders I constructed a rude breast-work of logs along my whole front on the day before the attack, and ordered telegraph wire to be stretched in front of this work and wound tightly around stumps, &c., the latter at the suggestion of General Smith. On the afternoon preceding the attack, General Smith, General Heckman, and myself crept out to a farm-house which was in front of my right in the open field and about midway between the lines, and by General Smith's orders I put 60 men in that farm-house to hold it, to strengthen our right. The four regiments of Heckman's brigade were caused by the attack, but there was no surprise on account of the fog as the whole line was in line of battle and prepared for the shock, having several times received warning from the farm-house. The other seven regiments of my line did not move until (after they had thrice repulsed the enemy with terrible slaughter, he being piled in heaps over the telegraph wire) they were ordered to fall back. After we had assumed our second position covering the direct road home, via Dr.