I also communicated the substance of this to General Thomas, to
whose army Palmer's corps belonged, who replied on the 5th:

I regret to hear that Palmer has taken the course he has, and I
know that he intends to offer his resignation as soon as he can
properly do so. I recommend that his application be granted.

And on the 5th I again wrote to General Palmer, arguing the point
with him, advising him, as a friend, not to resign at that crisis
lest his motives might be misconstrued, and because it might damage
his future career in civil life; but, at the same time, I felt it
my duty to say to him that the operations on that flank, during the
4th and 5th, had not been satisfactory--not imputing to him,
however, any want of energy or skill, but insisting that "the
events did not keep pace with my desires." General Schofield had
reported to me that night:

I am compelled to acknowledge that I have totally failed to make
any aggressive movement with the Fourteenth Corps. I have ordered
General Johnson's division to replace General Hascall's this
evening, and I propose to-morrow to take my own troops
(Twenty-third Corps) to the right, and try to recover what has been
lost by two days' delay. The force may likely be too small.

I sanctioned the movement, and ordered two of Palmers divisions
--Davis's and Baird's--to follow en echelon in support of Schofield,
and summoned General Palmer to meet me in person: He came on the
6th to my headquarters, and insisted on his resignation being
accepted, for which formal act I referred him to General Thomas.
He then rode to General Thomas's camp, where he made a written
resignation of his office as commander of the Fourteenth Corps, and
was granted the usual leave of absence to go to his home in
Illinois, there to await further orders. General Thomas
recommended that the resignation be accepted; that Johnson, the
senior division commander of the corps, should be ordered back to
Nashville as chief of cavalry, and that Brigadier-General Jefferson
C. Davis, the next in order, should be promoted major general, and
assigned to command the corps. These changes had to be referred to
the President, in Washington, and were, in due time, approved and
executed; and thenceforward I had no reason to complain of the
slowness or inactivity of that splendid corps. It had been
originally formed by General George H. Thomas, had been commanded
by him in person, and had imbibed some wha