returned to
Decatur on the 31st, and reported that General Stoneman had posted
him at Flat Rock, while he (Stoneman) went on. The month of July
therefore closed with our infantry line strongly entrenched, but
drawn out from the Augusta road on the left to the Sandtown road on
the right, a distance of full ten measured miles.

The enemy, though evidently somewhat intimidated by the results of
their defeats on the 22d and 28th, still presented a bold front at
all points, with fortified lines that defied a direct assault. Our
railroad was done to the rear of our camps, Colonel W. P. Wright
having reconstructed the bridge across the Chattahoochee in six
days; and our garrisons and detachments to the rear had so
effectually guarded the railroad that the trains from Nashville
arrived daily, and our substantial wants were well supplied.

The month, though hot in the extreme, had been one of constant
conflict, without intermission, and on four several occasions
--viz., July 4th, 20th, 22d, and 28th--these affairs had amounted to
real battles, with casualty lists by the thousands. Assuming the
correctness of the rebel surgeon Foard's report, on page 577 of
Johnston's "Narrative," commencing with July 4th and terminating
with July 31st, we have:

Aggregate loss of the enemy......... 10,841

Our losses, as compiled from the official returns for July,
1864, are:
Killed and Missing. Wounded. Total.

Aggregate loss of July....... 3,804 5,915 9,719

In this table the column of "killed and missing" embraces the
prisoners that fell into the hands of the enemy, mostly lost in the
Seventeenth Corps, on the 22d of July, and does not embrace the
losses in the cavalry divisions of Garrard and McCook, which,
however, were small for July. In all other respects the statement
is absolutely correct. I am satisfied, however, that Surgeon Foard
could not have been in possession of data sufficiently accurate to
enable him to report the losses in actual battle of men who never
saw the hospital. During the whole campaign I had rendered to me
tri-monthly statements of "effective strength," from which I
carefully eliminated the figures not essential for my conduct, so
that at all times I knew the exact fighting-strength of each corps,
division, and brigade, of the whole army, and also endeavored to
bear in mind our losses both on the several fields of battle and by
sickness, and well reme