Polk's in the centre, and
Hardee's on the left. He said he had ridden over the ground, given
to each corps commander his position, and orders to throw up
parapets during the night; that he was with Hardee on his extreme
left as the night closed in, and as Hardee's troops fell back to
the position assigned them for the intended battle of the next day;
and that, after giving Hardee some general instructions, he and his
staff rode back to Cassville. As he entered the town, or village,
he met Generals Hood and Polk. Hood inquired of him if he had had
any thing to eat, and he said no, that he was both hungry and
tired, when Hood invited him to go and share a supper which had
been prepared for him at a house close by. At the supper they
discussed the chances of the impending battle, when Hood spoke of
the ground assigned him as being enfiladed by our (Union)
artillery, which Johnston disputed, when General Polk chimed in
with the remark that General Hood was right; that the cannon-shots
fired by us at nightfall had enfiladed their general line of
battle, and that for this reason he feared they could not hold
their men. General Johnston was surprised at this, for he
understood General Hood to be one of those who professed to
criticise his strategy, contending that, instead of retreating, he
should have risked a battle. General Johnston said he was
provoked, accused them of having been in conference, with being
beaten before battle, and added that he was unwilling to engage in
a critical battle with an army so superior to his own in numbers,
with two of his three corps commanders dissatisfied with the ground
and positions assigned them. He then and there made up his mind to
retreat still farther south, to put the Etowah River and the
Allatoona range between us; and he at once gave orders to resume
the retrograde movement.

This was my recollection of the substance of the conversation, of
which I made no note at the time; but, at a meeting of the Society
of the Army of the Cumberland some years after, at Cleveland, Ohio,
about 1868, in a short after-dinner speech, I related this
conversation, and it got into print. Subsequently, in the spring
of 1870, when I was at New Orleans, on route for Texas, General
Hood called to see me at the St. Charles Hotel, explained that he
had seen my speech reprinted in the newspapers and gave me his
version of the same event, describing the halt at Cassville, the
general orders for ba