oncentrated
action. We were compelled to grope our way through forests, across
mountains, with a large army, necessarily more or less dispersed.
Of course, I was disappointed not to have crippled his, army more
at that particular stage of the game; but, as it resulted, these
rapid successes gave us the initiative, and the usual impulse of a
conquering army.

Johnston having retreated in the night of May 15th, immediate
pursuit was begun. A division of infantry (Jeff. C. Davis's) was
at once dispatched down the valley toward Rome, to support
Garrard's cavalry, and the whole army was ordered to pursue,
McPherson by Lay's Ferry, on the right, Thomas directly by the
railroad, and Schofield by the left, by the old road that crossed
the Oostenaula above Echota or Newtown.

We hastily repaired the railroad bridge at Resaca, which had been
partially burned, and built a temporary floating bridge out of
timber and materials found on the spot; so that Thomas got his
advance corps over during the 16th, and marched as far as Calhoun,
where he came into communication with McPherson's troops, which had
crossed the Oostenaula at Lay's Ferry by our pontoon-bridges,
previously laid. Inasmuch as the bridge at Resaca was overtaxed,
Hooker's Twentieth Corps was also diverted to cross by the fords
and ferries above Resaca, in the neighborhood of Echota.

On the 17th, toward evening, the head of Thomas's column, Newton's
division, encountered the rear-guard of Johnston's army near
Adairsville. I was near the head of column at the time, trying to
get a view of the position of the enemy from an elevation in an
open field. My party attracted the fire of a battery; a shell
passed through the group of staff-officers and burst just beyond,
which scattered us promptly. The next morning the enemy had
disappeared, and our pursuit was continued to Kingston, which we
reached during Sunday forenoon, the 19th.

From Resaca the railroad runs nearly due south, but at Kingston it
makes junction with another railroad from Rome, and changes
direction due east. At that time McPherson's head of column was
about four miles to the west of Kingston, at a country place called
"Woodlawn;" Schofield and Hooker were on the direct roads leading
from Newtown to Casaville, diagonal to the route followed by
Thomas. Thomas's head of column, which had followed the country
roads alongside of the railroad, was about four miles east of
Kingston, toward Cassville,