ake the Decatur-road line, camped right
in the rear of the Fifteenth Corps, and did not come back to me. When
Logan, Blair and myself met that evening, Blair asked Logan for some help
to go up to relieve troops at Bald Hill. Logan, seeing Mercer's Brigade
there, ordered me to send it up. They went up there and crawled in and
relieved the men on Bald Hill. This was very late in the night, and even
then fresh men coming in drove out or captured what men there were still
lying on the enemy's side of the intrenchments. Mercer never made a report
of this battle. You will see by my paper that he was virtually out of the
service, awaiting transportation home; but he went in with his regiment
the same as though they were still in the service. He was a German, and I
do not suppose he knew the importance of reporting; and as it was only a
short time later that I had to leave that army, I therefore did not follow
it up, and I find no report of Mercer or of the Ninth Illinois; but I
think the regimental reports of the Eighty-first Ohio give all these
facts. See War Records, volume 38, part 3, page 463, and report Second
Brigade, Second Division Sixteenth Army Corps, volume 38, part 3, page
450.

In my address I did not go much into detail, but I have all the data of
this battle compiled, and intend some day to put it in shape; but I give
you enough so you can, after examining the reports of Blair and the
others, make your article historically correct. Most of it is correct and
well-stated, but I know you want to get the dates and movements at the
left on such an occasion so full that they will stand criticism, as the
Battle of Atlanta was the great battle of that campaign.

Your article and many others that I have seen assumes that it was a part
of Hardee's Corps that struck Blair's front--that is, his front that was
towards Atlanta; but that is not so. Cleburn's Division was the left
Division of Hardee's Corps. There were three other Divisions. Maney's
(Cheatham's old Division), Bate's, and Walker's. Walker was the next to
Cleburn and attacked Fuller. Bate and Maney struck Sweeney. Cleburn's
Division was in front of Blair after Cleburn had driven back his left and
he had refused it from Leggett's Hill towards my right. What saved Blair
was that Cheatham, who commanded Hood's old Corps, whose orders were to
attack Blair's front at the same time Hardee struck his rear, in
accordance with the plans of both Hood and Hardee, did not at