n, and the morning of the 27th was fixed
for commencing the movement. On the 26th I received from General
Stoneman a note asking permission (after having accomplished his
orders to break up the railroad at Jonesboro) to go on to Macon to
rescue our prisoners of war known to be held there, and then to
push on to Andersonville, where was the great depot of Union
prisoners, in which were penned at one time as many as twenty-three
thousand of our men, badly fed and harshly treated. I wrote him an
answer consenting substantially to his proposition, only modifying
it by requiring him to send back General Garrard's division to its
position on our left flank after he had broken up the railroad at
Jonesboro. Promptly, and on time, all got off, and General Dodge's
corps (the Sixteenth, of the Army of the Tennessee) reached its
position across Proctor's Creek the same evening, and early the
next morning (the 28th) Blair's corps (the Seventeenth) deployed on
his right, both corps covering their front with the usual parapet;
the Fifteenth Corps (General Logan's) came up that morning on the
right of Blair, strongly refused, and began to prepare the usual
cover. As General Jeff. C. Davis's division was, as it were, left
out of line, I ordered it on the evening before to march down
toward Turner's Ferry, and then to take a road laid down on our
maps which led from there toward East Point, ready to engage any
enemy that might attack our general right flank, after the same
manner as had been done to the left flank on the 22d.

Personally on the morning of the 28th I followed the movement, and
rode to the extreme right, where we could hear some skirmishing and
an occasional cannon-shot. As we approached the ground held by the
Fifteenth Corps, a cannon-ball passed over my shoulder and killed
the horse of an orderly behind; and seeing that this gun enfiladed
the road by which we were riding, we turned out of it and rode down
into a valley, where we left our horses and walked up to the hill
held by Morgan L. Smith's division of the Fifteenth Corps. Near a
house I met Generals Howard and Logan, who explained that there was
an intrenched battery to their front, with the appearance of a
strong infantry support. I then walked up to the ridge, where I
found General Morgan L. Smith. His men were deployed and engaged
in rolling logs and fence-rails, preparing a hasty cover. From
this ridge we could overlook the open fields near a meeting-