About the latter part of January my scouts reported that the enemy were concentrating in force at Rolla, and shortly thereafter they occupied Lebanon. Believing that this movement could be for no other purpose than to attack me, and knowing that my command was inadequate for such resistance as the Interest of my army and the cause demanded, I appealed to the commanders of the Confederate troops In Arkansas to come to my assistance. This from correspondence I was confidently led to expect, and, relying upon it, I held my position to the very last moment, and, as the sequel proved, almost too long, for on Wednesday, Feb. 12, my pickets were driven in, and reported the enemy advancing upon me in force. No resource was now left me except retreat, without hazarding all with greatly unequal numbers upon the result of one engagement. This I deemed it unwise to do. I commenced retreating at once. I reached Cassville with loss unworthy of mention in any respect. Here the enemy in my rear commenced a series of attacks running through four days. Retreating and fighting all the way to Cross Hollows, in this State, I am rejoiced to say my command, under the most exhausting fatigue all that time, with but little rest for either man or beast and no sleep, sustained themselves and came through, repulsing the enemy upon every occasion with great determination and gallantry. My loss does not exceed four to six killed and some 15 to 18 wounded. That of the enemy we know to be ten times as great. Gen. Price's estimate of the losses he inflicted is widely divergent from that of Gen. Curtis, who does not admit any losses in killed in the noisy engagements while pushing Price back through the rough gorges, until he arrived at the Sugar Creek Crossing, six miles into Arkansas, where he lost 13 killed and 15 or 20 wounded in a very spirited little fight with the combined troops of Price and McCulloch, and camped that night upon the battlefield from which the enemy had retreated. Here Col. Cyrus Bussey joined him with five companies of the 3d Iowa Cav., having made a forward march from Rolla, Mo., in four days. 308 Curtis was so encouraged by his success that he kept on pushing Price back upon McCulloch, even upon the boasted "Gibraltar" at Cross Hollows, and then, to the astonishment and delight of himself and the whole army, forced the evacuation of this stronghold by a flank movement The rebels' abandonment of it was so complete that they burned all their stores and the great array of cabins built for quarters, leaving only the chimneys to mark the long rows.