under pretense of going to my own regiment, and went north along the railroad, until I came to the battery that I was directed to visit. It contained twelve large guns well masked. I then turned to the right and rode along the first line of intrenchments. About eighty rods from the masked battery I found a six-gun battery of small guns, and about eighty rods further on was another six-gun battery of small guns. About midway between the two six-gun batteries, I came upon a small squad of militia that had been digging a spur from the main ditch for a rifle-pit. One of the party stepped out of a pit that he had just completed, and for a moment contemplated the result of his labor, and then said: "Nary a Yankee is gwine to _come_ up thar; _thar_ is whar I'll _stay_, and _thar_ is whar I'll _die_!" When we came in possession of the place, however, we found no dead bodies "_thar_." Down under the hill from the six-gun batteries, toward Marietta, I found a large force of State militia, who were holding the right of the rebel lines by themselves. There was nothing military in their appearance. Their camp was without regularity, and filthy in the extreme. Many of them had their families with them, and some of them had cows tied to their wagons. The dog and cat were not left behind. The tongues of their wagons usually pointed outward, and boards laid across from one wagon-tongue to another served them as tables. Decrepit old men and little boys, women and babies, white and black, were there. The various kinds and calibers of small arms were as numerous and different as the individuals that carried them. I thought to myself that it would be a fine place to throw a few big shells. It would have created a panic, at a trifling expense, that would have eclipsed any thing in the history of the rebellion. The ditches of the first line I found to be four feet deep and six feet wide. A little to the right and front of the militia, I found a brigade of Texas cavalry, composed, in part, of the 11th and 3d Texas Regiments; two other Texas regiments made up the brigade. I went to the Orderly Sergeant of company A, of the 11th Texas, and told him that I belonged to company A of the 1st South Carolina Cavalry, and that my regiment had just come in that day, and that I had got separated from my command, and would like to stay with him over night, and then hunt up my regiment in the morning. He went to the Colonel and asked permission to keep me, which was granted. The Colonel of the 11th Texas was in command of the brigade.