6 June 1791. Camp before Tulcha
On the fourth of this month with the aid of the Almighty I succeeded in defeating a significant enemy body under the command of the three-bunchuk seraskier Ahmet, who had with him the three-bunchuk Zhurn-Oglu, the former commander of Khotin, and the two-bunchuk Kurd Osman-Pasha and two-bunchuk Da-Gir Arnaut-Pasha. They were also accompanied by Khan Bakhti-Girey with five sultans, and had with them all the Nekrasov cossacks and disloyal Zaporozhians.
The entire fortified camp, whose defenses were multiplied by nature and a certain degree of artifice, became our prize, as well as eight new cannons and several flags.
Having received reinforcement on the 2nd, the enemy numbered 15,000 Turks and about 8000 belonging to the khan. The enemy loss in killed reached some 1500, including many of high rank. Only some 30 wounded men could be saved since the cossacks who pursued the enemy did not want to be burdened with prisoners and showed no mercy. Their big magazines in Babad were destroyed, about 30,000 quarters of grain and the powder reserves.
In this affair our losses were exceedingly small and were almost all cossacks.
I have now arrived in Tulcha.
Lieutenant General Golenishshchev-Kutuzov
I have he honor to send this with my duty major Alfimov, whose labors in this affair I praise before Your Majesty.
Mikhail Golenishchev-Kutuzov
Source: Shishov, A.V., Neizvestnyi Kutuzov. Novoe prochtenie biografii. Moscow, 2002.
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Translated by Mark Conrad, 2010.