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of our camp, their line was brought to a halt and after twenty minutes of nearly hand-to-hand fighting, the enemy broke and fled in the wildest confusion, followed in close pursuit by one company as skirmishers.
A squadron of cavalry launched at their heels at this time would have utterly routed and annihilated them.
Indeed, so great was their panic, that their officers were unable to check the fugitives for a space of seven miles; and Col. Lawton, commanding the Georgia regiment, was subsequently arrested by General Forrest for misconduct under the fire of the enemy.
During this attack, both officers and men, with one single exception, behaved very handsomely.
There was no excitement, no hurry, no confusion; every thing was done calmly, quietly, and in obedience to orders.
But it is with the deepest shame and mortification I am compelled to report that one officer of Michigan has been guilty of gross cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Capt. John A. Taner, of company K, Ninth Michigan volunteers, at the first alarm left his quarters, abandoned his company, and fled from his command under the enemy's fire, and I therefore enclose you herewith charges preferred against him for violation of the fifty-second Article of War.
Capt. Charles V. De Land, company C, Ninth Michigan volunteers, deserves especial mention for cool and gallant conduct throughout the entire action, and the fearless mode in which he led his company as skirmishers in pursuit of the enemy when repulsed.
Also First Lieut. Hiram Barrows, of company A, same regiment, for the tenacity with which he held his ground, although sorely pressed by the enemy.
The loss of the detachment of the Ninth Michigan volunteers has been very severe for the number engaged, amounting to one officer and twelve men killed, and three officers and seventy-five wounded. The enemy's loss has been much more severe than our own. More than double the number of their dead were buried with ours, and their wounded are found in almost every house.
Among their wounded are a colonel and a major, two adjutants and a surgeon.
I enclose you herewith the surgeon's report of the killed and wounded of the Ninth Michigan volunteers.
Not having been present at the subsequent surrender of the detachment of the Ninth Michigan volunteers, under Lieut.-Col. Parkhurst, I can only state the facts as reported to me, which show that this force, isolated and reduced by killed and wounded to less than seventy-five men, after having held their ground from four A. M. to one P. M., were compelled to surrender or be cut to pieces by the entire force of the enemy.
I am reliably informed that company B, Ninth Michigan volunteers, under command of First Lieut. Wright, held the Court-House against an incessant attack by a greatly superior force, from four A. M. to half-past 7 A. M., and did not surrender till the enemy had possession of the lower story of the building, and had started a fire with the evident intention of burning them out.
Of the surrender of the Third Minnesota volunteers, and Hewitt's battery, under command of Col. Lester, I cannot speak from personal knowledge, nor have I received any information from sources sufficiently reliable to warrant my communicating to you any details.
Indeed, I would much prefer not to do so. The circumstances of the causes reported bear painfully upon the honor of a brother officer, now a prisoner, and therefore unable to defend himself.
I enclose you herewith a list of killed and wounded of the Third Minnesota volunteers, furnished me by the assistant-surgeon of that regiment, amounting to two killed and eight wounded, one of whom was killed and two wounded in line, the remainder in camp.
In the early part of this attack, I received two gunshot wounds, one passing through the right testicle, the other through the left thigh.
These, although bleeding profusely and very painful, did not prevent me from remaining on the field with my own regiment, until the attack was repulsed; when, fainting from pain and loss of blood, I was carried from the field, and was, therefore, not a witness of what subsequently occurred.
At noon of the same day, I was made prisoner by Brig.-Gen. Forrest, but in my then helpless condition was released upon my parole not to bear arms against the confederate States until I am regularly exchanged.
I remain, Colonel, your obedient servant,
William W. Duffield, Colonel Ninth Michigan Independent Volunteers, Commanding Twenty-third Brigade. Col. James B. Fry, A. A.G., Chief of Staff, Huntsville, Ala.
General Buell's order.
headquarters army of the Ohio, in camp, Huntsville, Ala., July 21, 1862.
On the thirteenth instant the force at Murfreesboro, under command of Brigadier-General T. T. Crittenden, late Colonel of the Sixth Indiana regiment, and consisting of six companies of the Ninth Michigan, nine companies of the Third Minnesota, two sections of Hewitt's Kentucky battery, four companies of the Fourth Kentucky cavalry, and three companies of the Seventh Pennsylvania cavalry, was captured at that place by a force of the enemy's cavalry, variously estimated at from eighteen hundred to thirty-five hundred.
It appears from the best information that can be obtained that Brigadier-General Crittenden and Colonel Duffield, of the Ninth Michigan, with the six companies of that regiment and all of the cavalry, were surprised and captured early in the morning, in the houses and streets of the town, or in their camp near by, with but slight resistance, and without any timely warning of the presence of the enemy, The rest of the force, consisting of the Third Minnesota and the artillery, under Colonel Lester, left its camp and took another position, which it maintained, with but few casualties, against the feeble attacks of the enemy until about three o'clock, when it was surrendered and marched into captivity.
