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, October 20, 1863.

Colonel, Assistant Adjutant-General:

Colonel—I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the forces under my command, from the 5th to the 13th instant:

On the afternoon of the 3d instant, I received orders from General Johnston, through Major-General Lee, commanding cavalry in Mississippi, to move my whole command against the enemy on the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad within four days; the principal object of the movement being explained to be to divert the attention of the enemy from a movement which General Lee was about to make in person in a different direction.

To effect this object, and at the same time to annoy the enemy as much as possible, I determined to concentrate my force—consisting of my own brigade and that commanded by Colonel R. V. Richardson, which was then stationed at New Albany—at Salem, as if with the intention of attacking La Grange or some point further east, and thus, while the attention of the enemy was drawn in that direction, to make a rapid movement towards Colliersville, in the hope of surprising it before information of my movement could be received. With the view of still further misleading them, I caused it to be reported, when I knew it would reach the enemy, that we were concentrating a large force for an attack on Corinth.

Finding it impossible to put Colonel Richardson's brigade (which had been transferred to my command on the 2d) in readiness to move before the 6th, I ordered my whole command to move on the morning of that day, directing Richardson's brigade, the First Mississippi partisans and Second Mississippi cavalry, which were on outpost duty, to join me at Salem; but hearing on the evening of the 4th that the enemy intended to disturb the election which was to be held in Holly Springs on the 5th, I left the new regiment, commanded by Colonel George, which was not fully organized, to picket the river, and moved at daylight the next morning with the other troops under my immediate command, consisting of the Seventh Tennessee, Third Mississippi (State), Eighteenth Mississippi battalion and one rifle gun, the whole amounting to about eight