Lew. Wallace, June 27, 1861

Sir: Yesterday a mounted picket of mine of thirteen men, on the road to Frankfort, attacked a company of rebels, forty-one in number, chased them a couple of miles, killed eight of them, and captured seventeen horses. Returning from the skirmish, they were in turn attacked by the enemy, re-enforced to seventy-five men, and driven to a kind of island in the neighborhood of the mouth of Patterson’s Creek, where they made a stand and fought till dusk, killing and wounding a large number, when they escaped with the loss of one man, John Hollinbeck, Company B, killed, and Corporal David Hayes, Company A, wounded. The bodies of twenty-three rebels were laid out on the porch of a farm house near the scene of the last engagement. Hight dead bodies (rebels) were lett on the railroad track, where the first encounter took place. Hayes is doing well. His hurts are a saber cut on the head and two bullet wounds on the body.

I would simply say of this skirmish, that it was one of the boldest, most desperate, and fortunate on record, abounding with instances on the part of my scouts of rarest coolness, skill, and courage. What makes it most singular is that, for a considerable portion of the time, it was a hand-to-hand fight, carried on with pistol, saber, bayonet, and fist. One man, Louis Farley, killed six rebels; another (Grover) killed three; David Hayes, the wounded corporal, killed two, and received all his wounds while in hot pursuit at the very tails of the rebels’ horses. Among the dead of the enemy are a Captain Blue and two lieutenants.

Hollinbeck, the only man of mine killed, was severely wounded, then taken prisoner, and then brutally murdered by his captors.

All my men bear marks of the contest; some in bruises and cuts, others in bullet-holes through their clothes and equipments.

Very respectfully,