Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 6.
Frank Moore, Ed.

sir: I have the honor to submit to you the following report of a skirmish which took place between the command of Captain F. Tucker, company F, First Kansas volunteers, consisting of a detachment of infantry, numbering seventy men, detailed from the First Kansas infantry, Ninety-fifth Illinois, Seventeenth Illinois, and Sixteenth Wisconsin, together with company F, First Kansas volunteers, mounted, and numbering between twenty and thirty men, and the First battalion, Third regiment Louisiana cavalry, at Old River, on the tenth of February, 1863.

We met the enemy, numbering, according to the statement of prisoners, (and intelligent and reliable contrabands,) between three and four hundred, and whipped them badly.

The boys behaved as Western troops always do, which, I hope, they will all think praise enough for their good conduct during the fight. I desire, however, to call the attention of the Commanding Officer to the conduct of Private Daniel Updegraff, of company F, First Kansas volunteers, who was not one of the detail, but, when the fight commenced, took a gun from a man who was sick and went into the fight; he stood and took the fire of five rebels, and then rushed on them with his empty gun, calling upon them, in language much more forcible than polite, to surrender, which they did, and he marched them to the rear. I also desire to call attention to the fact, that after Captain Tucker was knocked off his horse by one shot, and lying on the ground, within thirty feet of the enemy, unable to rise, an officer ordered one of his men to shoot him, which he did. We had one man killed and seven wounded; and killed four, wounded seven, and took one second lieutenant, one sergeant, one corporal, and twenty-three privates; prisoners.

Appended you will please find a list of killed and wounded.

I have the honor to be yours to command,