Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Chapter XXII: Operations in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Mississippi, North Alabama, and Southwest Virginia. March 4-June 10, 1862.
Lieut. Col. Robert N. Scott, Ed.

Dear sir: I have the honor to report to you that in the action on Monday, the 7th instant, a portion of the Seventh Regiment Kentucky Volunteers were in position in your command and acted in concert with it under your orders. I was delayed a short time on Monday morning from joining my regiment, having been sent by Colonel Wickliffe to bring up a company that we understood was on its way back to our encampment. When I received your command was advancing up the slope of a ridge toward some buildings, afterwards burned by our men, and the enemy falling back before you. Up to that time my regiment had been acting under the orders of Colonel Lockett. When we reached the buildings above mentioned and formed the line a few paces beyond on the ridge Colonel Lockett transferred the command to myself, and Colonel Wickliffe, arriving shortly afterward, assumed command himself. At your direction I assisted you as aide along that portion of the line where my regiment was posted. After considerable maneuvering along the ridge an order passed along the line to move forward, which was done promptly and in good order along that portion of the line which came under my observation. The direction led us across a branch and up the slope of a hill covered with a thick underbrush. The enemy opened a heavy fire upon us, and Colonel Wickliffe fell at the first fire with severe wound on the head. We advanced a short distance farther up the hill, near enough to see that the enemy was retiring, but firing on us as he fell back. Our line also gave way and was again formed on the ridge we had just left.

I again assumed command of my regiment in consequence of the wound of Colonel Wickliffe. We then moved by the left flank in support of a battery of ours, which shelled the Federals out of an encampment situated across a field from where the battery was planted. We then [459] moved by the right flank and came under a very heavy fire from an enemy's battery planted in our front. It was here that our line gave way and moved to the rear. My regiment, being posted on the right, flanked off to the left, and a portion of it passed through the field to the east and adjoining the burnt building. They received a fire from the enemy posted on the side of the field and returned it. After a few rounds the enemy fell back from the fence.

I was much mortified at our men retiring from the charge up the slope of the wooded hill at the very moment when the enemy himself was retiring, but I am satisfied. that the enemy had not been forced back sufficiently far on our right to have enabled us to have held the ridge in our advance if we had taken [it] without heavy fighting and great loss of life.

Very respectfully, yours,