Lt.  E. WHITEFORD's chancellorsville report

CHANCELLORSVILLE, VA.,
May 3, 1863.

CAPTAIN: In accordance with orders from General Meagher, I have the honor to report as follows:

During the heat of the action, personal orders were received from General Couch to advance the brigade then supporting the Fifth Maine Battery through the woods in their front, but were immediately countermanded by him, and skirmishers ordered to be thrown out. I received orders then from General Meagher to throw out 50 men of the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts, under command of Captain Lawler, to be deployed to the right and left of a wood, passing through the wood on our extreme right, the men to be deployed so as to cover the front of the brigade.

On returning, I found that the fire which the enemy concentrated on  the above battery compelled the men to desert the guns, the horses at the time being either all killed or wounded. On reporting the fact to General Meagher, I was ordered by him to tell Major Mulholland, of the One hundred and sixteenth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, to save the guns with his men, at any risk, and too much praise cannot be bestowed on him for his own cool bravery, and that of the men under his command, having to take them out of stiff yellow clay, where the guns were stuck, and under a galling fire of the enemy, by which some 4 or 5 of his men were either killed or wounded; but he succeeded, most fortunately, in obeying orders, and drawing the guns, five in number, to within 1 mile of the pontoon bridge, where limbers were sent up, from the chief of artillery, to draw them to the extreme rear.

I have the honor to be, captain, most respectfully,

E. WHITEFORD,

Lieutenant and Aide-de-Camp.

Capt. M. W. WALL,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.