road, and make
all orders in my name that will expedite its completion. I want it
finished, to bring back from Atlanta to Chattanooga the sick and
wounded men and surplus stores. On the 1st of November I want
nothing in front of Chattanooga except what we can use as food and
clothing and haul in our wagons. There is plenty of corn in the
country, and we only want forage for the posts. I allow ten days
for all this to be done, by which time I expect to be at or near
Atlanta.

I telegraphed also to General Amos Beckwith, chief-commissary in
Atlanta, who was acting as chief-quartermaster during the absence
of General Easton:

Hood will escape me. I want to prepare for my big raid. On the
1st of November I want nothing in Atlanta but what is necessary for
war. Send all trash to the rear at once, and have on hand thirty
days' food and but little forage. I propose to abandon Atlanta,
and the railroad back to Chattanooga, to sally forth to ruin
Georgia and bring up on the seashore. Make all dispositions
accordingly. I will go down the Coosa until I am sure that Hood
has gone to Blue Mountain.

On the 21st of October I reached Gaylesville, had my bivouac in an
open field back of the village, and remained there till the 28th.
During that time General Schofield arrived, with the two divisions
of Generals Wagner (formerly Newton's) and Morgan, which were
returned to their respective corps (the Fourth and Fourteenth), and
General Schofield resumed his own command of the Army of the Ohio,
then on the Coosa River, near Cedar Bluff. General Joseph A. Mower
also arrived, and was assigned to command a division in the
Seventeenth Corps; and General J. H. Wilson came, having been sent
from Virginia by General Grant, for the purpose of commanding all
my cavalry. I first intended to organize this cavalry into a corps
of three small divisions, to be commanded by General Wilson; but
the horses were well run down, and, at Wilson's instance, I
concluded to retain only one division of four thousand five hundred
men, with selected horses, under General Kilpatrick, and to send
General Wilson back with all the rest to Nashville, to be
reorganized and to act under General Thomas in the defense of
Tennessee. Orders to this effect were made on the 24th of October.

General Grant, in designating General Wilson to command my cavalry,
predicted that he would, by his personal activity, increase the
effect of that arm "fifty per cen