and will indorse them with such remarks as I deem proper.

I am, with much respect, your obedient servant,

W. T. SHERMAN,
Brigadier-General commanding Fifth Division.



HEADQUARTERS FIFTH DIVISION
Tuesday, April 8,1862

Sir: With the cavalry placed at my command and two brigades of my
fatigued troops, I went this morning out on the Corinth road. One
after another of the abandoned camps of the enemy lined the roads,
with hospital flags for their protection; at all we found more or
less wounded and dead men. At the forks of the road I found the
head of General T. J. Wood's division of Buell's Army. I ordered
cavalry to examine both roads leading toward Corinth, and found the
enemy on both. Colonel Dickey, of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry,
asking for reenforcements, I ordered General Wood to advance the
head of his column cautiously on the left-hand road, while I
conducted the head of the third brigade of my division up the
right-hand road. About half a mile from the forks was a clear
field, through which the road passed, and, immediately beyond, a
space of some two hundred yards of fallen timber, and beyond that
an extensive rebel camp. The enemy's cavalry could be seen in this
camp; after reconnoisance, I ordered the two advance companies of
the Ohio Seventy-seventh, Colonel Hildebrand, to deploy forward as
skirmishers, and the regiment itself forward into line, with an