On the 15th of May we marched west, toward Vicksburg, and on the 16th the enemy was found in large force at Champion Hills, under command of Lieutenant-General Pemberton. He had moved his army out from Vicksburg to attack us. The position selected by the enemy was a strong one, on the summit of an elevation, or ridge of ground, with a line something like a crescent, the right and left of the line further advanced than the center. The face of the hill, in front of the enemy, was an open field, thereby exposing our lines to view as we advanced to the attack. The enemy's lines were in the skirts of a piece of woods that extended to his rear. Early in the day, the battle commenced, opening on our left, and extending gradually along to our right, until the whole line was engaged, when it raged with intense fury. General Hovey's division, on our left, from the much stronger position occupied by the enemy in its front, suffered terribly; but timely support arrived, and the enemy was driven back. An attempt was then made to crush our center, but made in vain. Support having arrived to the assistance of the center, a dashing charge was made and the enemy routed. It was a desperate and hard-fought battle, with a heavy loss on both sides, but that of the enemy was much the heaviest. Here, again, I must refer the reader to the official reports for the casualties. It will not be amiss, perhaps, to give the reader some of my personal experience in that battle. When the action commenced, I was instructed by General Logan to keep to the right of each brigade of his division, as they successively arrived in position and became engaged, and to watch closely for any attempt at flank movement on the part of the enemy. My first position was with the line of skirmishers of the 2d Brigade. About the time our skirmishing commenced, a rebel courier was seen dashing along in a line nearly parallel to the line of skirmishers from the right, and about one hundred yards in advance of the line. When up with and in front of the line, he discovered us and wheeled to the right, and was dashing away at right angles with our line, when six of us brought our pieces to bear on him and fired. He fell from his horse, with one foot fastened in the stirrup. At that instant, the horse gave a leap over a log, and the dangling body struck the log and bounded into the air higher than the horse's back, and then struck the ground with a "thug" sufficient, to all appearances, to have crushed every bone in his body. A few minutes later, I saw a rebel Major leading his regiment forward to charge upon one of our batteries. When I saw him he was not more than fifty yards distant. In an instant I brought my "repeater" to my face, and while I was looking at the prominent point of his right-cheek bone, a ball took him in the exact spot that I was looking at, and he tumbled from his horse.