notified to send their surplus wagons, incumbrances of all kinds, and sick back to our intrenched position at the bridge, and that the movement would begin during the night of the 25th. Accordingly, all things being ready, the Fourth Corps, General Stanley, drew out of its lines on our extreme left, and marched to a position below Proctor's Creek. The Twentieth Corps, General Williams, moved back to the Chattahoochie. This movement was made without loss, save a few things left in our camps by thoughtless officers or men. The night of the 26th the movement continued, the army of the Tennessee drawing out and moving rapidly by a circuit well towards Sandtown and across Camp Creek, the army of the Cumberland below Utoy Creek, General Schofield remaining in position. This was effected with the loss of but a single man in the army of the Tennessee wounded by a shell from the enemy. The third movement brought the army of the Tennessee on the West Point railroad, above Fairborn, the army of the Cumberland about Red Oak, and General Schofield closed in near Digs and Mins. I then ordered one day's work to be expended in destroying that road, and it was done with a will. Twelve and one-half miles were destroyed, the ties burned, and the iron rails heated and tortured by the utmost ingenuity of old hands at the work. Several cuts were filled up with the trunks of trees, with logs, rock, and earth intermingled with loaded shells, prepared as torpedoes, to explode in case of an attempt to clear them out. Having personally inspected this work, and satisfied with its execution, I ordered the whole army to move the next day eastward by several roads. General Howard on the right towards Jonesboro,' General Thomas, the centre, by Shoal Creek church to Couch's on the Decatur and Fayetteville road, and General Schofield, on the left, about Morrow's mills. An inspection of the

map will show the strategic advantages of this position. The railroad from Atlanta to Macon follows substantially the ridge or 'divide' between the waters of Flint and Ocmulgee rivers, and from East Point to Jonesboro' makes a wide bend to the east. Therefore the position I have described, which had been well studied on paper, was my first 'objective.' It gave me 'interior lines,' something our enemy had enjoyed too long, and I was anxious for once to get the inside track, and therefore my haste and desire to secure it.

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"The several columns moved punctually on the morning of the 29th. General Thomas, on the centre, encountered little opposition or difficulty, save what resulted from the narrow roads, and reached his position at Couch's early in the afternoon. General Schofield, being closer to the enemy, who still clung to East Point, moved cautiously on a small circle around that point, and came into position toward Rough-and-Ready; and General Howard, having the outer circle, had a greater distance to move. He encountered cavalry, which he drove rapidly to the crossing of Shoal Creek, where the enemy also had artillery. Here a short delay occurred, and some cannonading and skirmishing; but General Howard started them again, and kept them moving, passed the Renfro Place on the Decatur Road, which was the point indicated for him in the orders of that day; but he wisely and well kept on, and pushed on toward Jonesboro', saved the bridges across Flint River, and did not halt until darkness compelled him within half a mile of Jonesboro'. Here he rested for the night, and on the morning of August 31st, finding himself in the presence of a heavy force of the enemy, he deployed the Fifteenth Corps, and disposed the Sixteenth and Seventeenth on its flanks. The men covered their front with the usual parapet, and were soon prepared to act offensively or defensively, as the

These continued for about an hour, and again about 4 A. M. occurred another series of similar discharges, apparently nearer us and these sounds could be accounted for on no other hypothesis than of a night attack on Atlanta by General Slocum, or the blowing up of the enemy's magazines. Nevertheless, at daybreak, on finding the enemy gone from his lines at Jonesboro', I ordered a general pursuit south, General Thomas following to the left of the railroad, General Howard on its right, and General Schofield keeping off about two miles to the east. We overtook the enemy again near Lovejoy's station, in a strong intrenched position, with his flanks well protected behind a branch of Walnut Creek to the right, and a confluent of the Flint River to his left. We pushed close up and reconnoitered the ground, and found he had evidently halted to cover his communication with the McDonough and Fayetteville Road.

"Rumors began to arrive through prisoners captured that Atlanta had been abandoned during the night of September 1st; that Hood had blown up his ammunition trains, which accounted for the sounds so plainly heard by us and which were yet unexplained, that Stewart's corps was then retreating toward McDonough, and that the militia had gone off toward Covington. It was then too late to interpose and prevent their escape, and I was satisfied with the substantial success already gained. Accordingly, I ordered the work of destroying railroad to cease, and the troops to be held in hand ready for any movement that further information from Atlanta might warrant. General Jeff. C. Davis had been left above Jonesboro', and General Garrard's cavalry was still further back, and the latter was ordered to send back to Atlanta and ascertain the exact truth and the real situation of affairs. But the same night, viz., of September 4th, a courier arrived from General Slocum,

reporting the fact that the enemy had evacuated Atlanta, blown up seven trains of cars, and had retreated on the McDonough Road. General Slocum had entered and taken possession on 2d of September.

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"The object of my movement against the railroad was, therefore, already reached and concluded, and as it was idle to pursue our enemy in that wooded country with a view to his capture, I gave orders on the 4th for the Army to prepare to move back slowly to Atlanta. On the 5th we drew back to the vicinity of Jonesboro', five miles, where we remained a day. On the 7th we moved to Rough-and-Ready, seven miles, and the next to the camps selected, viz: the Army of the Cumberland grouped round about Atlanta, the Army of the Tennessee about East Point, and that of the Ohio at Decatur, where the men now occupy clean and healthy camps. have not yet received full or satisfactory accounts of Wheeler's operations to our rear, further than that he broke the road about Calhoun, and then made his appearance at Dalton, where Colonel Laibold held him in check until General Steedman arrived from Chattanooga and drove him off. He then passed up into East Tennessee, and made quite a stay at Athens; but, on the first show of pursuit, he kept on north across the Little Tennessee; and crossing the Holston near Strawberry Plains, reached the Clinch near Clinton, and passed over towards Sequatchee and McMinnville. Thence he seems to have gone to Murfreesboro' and Lebanon, and across to Franklin. He may have committed damage to the property of citizens, but has injured us but little, the railroads being repaired about as fast as he broke them. From Franklin he has been pursued towards Florence, and out of the State by Generals Rousseau, Steedman, and Granger; but what amount of execution they have done to him is not yet reported. Our roads and telegraph are

all repaired, and the cars run with regularity and speed. It is proper to remark in this place, that during the operation of this campaign, expeditions were sent out from Memphis and Vicksburgh to check any movements of the enemy's forces in Mississippi upon our communications. The manner in which this object was accomplished reflects credit upon Generals A. J. Smith, Washburne, Slocum, and Mower; and although General Sturgis' expedition was less successful than the others, it assisted us in the main object to be accomplished.

"I must bear full and liberal testimony to the energetic and successful management of our railroads during the campaign. No matter when or where a break has been made, the repair train seemed on the spot, and the damage was repaired generally before I knew of the break. Bridges have been built with surprising rapidity, and the locomotive whistle was heard in our advanced camps almost before the echoes of the skirmish fire had ceased. Some of these bridges --those of the Oostanaula, the Etowah, and Chattahoochie-are fine, substantial structures, and were built in inconceivably short time almost out of material improvised on the spot. Colonel W. W. Wright, who has charge of the 'construction and repairs,' is not only a most skillful, but a wonderfully ingenious, industrious, and zealous officer, and I can hardly do him justice. In like manner the officers charged with running the trains have succeeded to my entire satisfaction, and have worked in perfect harmony with the quartermasters and commissaries, bringing forward abundant supplies with such regularity that at no one time have we wanted for provisions, forage, ammunition, or stores of any essential kind. Colonel L. C. Easton, Chief Quartermaster, and Colonel A. Beckwith, Chief Commissary, have also succeeded, in a manner surprising to all of us, in getting forward supplies. I doubt if ever an army was better sup

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plied than this, and I commend them most highly for it, because I know that more solicitude was felt by the Lieutenant-General commanding, and by the military world at large, on this than on any other one problem involved in the success of the campaign. Captain T. G. Baylor, Chief Ordnance Officer, has in like manner kept the army well supplied at all times with every kind of ammunition. To Captain O. M. Poe, Chief Engineer, I am more than ordinarily indebted for keeping me supplied with maps and information of roads and topography, as well as in the more important branch of his duties in selecting lines and military positions. My own personal staff has been small but select. Brigadier-General W. F. Barry, an officer of enlarged capacity and great experience, has filled the office of Chief of Artillery to perfection, and Lieutenant-Colonel E. D. Kittoe, Chief Medical Inspector, has done everything possible to give proper aid and direction to the operations of that important department. I have never seen the wounded removed from the fields of battle, cared for, and afterwards sent to proper hospitals in the rear, with more promptness, system, care, and success, than during this whole campaign, covering over one hundred days of actual battle and skirmish. My Aides-de-Camp, Major J. C. McCoy, Captain L. M. Dayton, and Captain J. C. Audenried, have been ever zealous and most efficient, carrying my orders day and night to distant points of our extended lines, with an intelligence and zeal that insured the perfect working of machinery, covering from ten to twenty-five miles of ground, when the least error in the delivery and explantion of an order, would have produced confusion; whereas in great measure, owing to the intelligence of these officers, orders have been made so clear that these vast armies have moved side by side, sometimes crossing each others tracks through a difficult