ere. I know
he received the order, for his initials, in his own hand, are on
the envelop which the orderly brought back, and I know he is there.
Hooker's statement is false." What a delight it was to execute
the orders of a chief who manifested such confidence!

HOOKER'S DESPATCH EVIDENTLY MISINTERPRETED

I do not remember that I was "very angry" about Hooker's despatch,
as General Sherman says (Vol. II, page 59), though I think Sherman
was. Indeed, he had more reason to be angry than I; for the fact,
and evidence of it, were so plain that the Twenty-third Corps had
done its duty as ordered, that if Hooker's despatch was meant to
imply the contrary, which I doubt, that was a cause of anger to
the general-in-chief, whom he had unnecessarily alarmed, rather
than to me, who had no apprehension of being suspected by the
general-in-chief of having failed in my duty.

In fact, I do not recollect having seen Hooker's despatch at all
until I saw it quoted in Sherman's "Memoirs." My recollection is
that Sherman told me, on his visiting us the next day, that he had
received during the battle a despatch from Hooker to the effect
that his flank was unprotected. In reply to this I explained to
General Sherman where my troops had been during the engagement,
and showed him the dead of the 14th Kentucky lying on the advanced
ground they had held while Hascall's division was forming. I
believe that if I had seen Hooker's despatch at the time, I should
have interpreted it then, as I do now, as referring, not to his
immediate right, but to the extreme right of the line. I do not
recollect any words, "pretty sharp" or otherwise, between General
Hooker and myself on that subject, and do not believe it was ever
mentioned between us. In short, I do not think I was present at
the interview in the "little church" described by General Sherman
(Sherman's "Memoirs," Vol. II, page 59). I have an impression that
General Hascall was there, and that it is to him General Sherman
refers. I believe the Kolb House difficulty was almost entirely
a misapprehension between General Sherman and General Hooker. Why
this mistake was not explained at the time or afterward I do not
know, unless it was that the feelings of those two gentlemen toward
each other were unfavorable to any such explanation.

I will add that General Hooker and I were together both before and
after the opening of the Kolb House engagement.