e indications were that he would strike our railroad nearer us,
viz., about Kingston or Marietta.

Orders were at once made for the Twentieth Corps (Slocum's) to hold
Atlanta and the bridges of the Chattahoochee, and the other corps
were put in motion for Marietta.

The army had undergone many changes since the capture of Atlanta.
General Schofield had gone to the rear, leaving General J. D. Cog
in command of the Army of the Ohio (Twenty-third Corps). General
Thomas, also, had been dispatched to Chattanooga, with Newton's
division of the Fourth Corps and Morgan's of the Fourteenth Corps,
leaving General D. S. Stanley, the senior major-general of the two
corps of his Army of the Cumberland, remaining and available for
this movement, viz., the Fourth and Fourteenth, commanded by
himself and Major-General Jeff. C. Davis; and after General Dodge
was wounded, his corps (the Sixteenth) had been broken up, and its
two divisions were added to the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps,
constituting the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Major-General
O. O. Howard. Generals Logan and Blair had gone home to assist in
the political canvass, leaving their corps, viz., the Fifteenth and
Seventeenth, under the command of Major-Generals Osterhaus and T.
E. G. Ransom.

These five corps were very much reduced in strength, by detachments
and by discharges, so that for the purpose of fighting Hood I had
only about sixty thousand infantry and artillery, with two small
divisions of cavalry (Kilpatrick's and Garrard's). General Elliott
was the chief of cavalry to the Army of the Cumberland, and was the
senior officer of that arm of service present for duty with me.

We had strong railroad guards at Marietta and Kenesaw, Allatoona,
Etowah Bridge, Kingston, Rome, Resaca, Dalton, Ringgold, and
Chattanooga. All the important bridges were likewise protected by
good block-houses, admirably constructed, and capable of a strong
defense against cavalry or infantry; and at nearly all the regular
railroad-stations we had smaller detachments intrenched. I had
little fear of the enemy's cavalry damaging our roads seriously,
for they rarely made a break which could not be repaired in a few
days; but it was absolutely necessary to keep General Hood's
infantry off our main route of communication and supply. Forrest
had with him in Middle Tennessee about eight thousand cavalry, and
Hood's army was estimated at from thirty-five to forty thousand
men, in