oops.

SENT BACK TO THOMAS'S AID

After leaving General Sherman that afternoon and returning to my
own camp, I wrote him a letter giving a special reason why my corps,
rather than any other, should be sent back to Tennessee in order
that it might be filled up my new regiments which had been ordered
from the North. No answer came to these suggestions until I had
made three days' march toward Atlanta, _en route_ for Savannah.
Then I received an order, October 30, to march to the nearest point
on the railroad, and report by telegraph to General Thomas for
orders.

At first General Thomas ordered me to move by rail to Tullahoma,
and then march across to Pulaski, as Stanley was doing. But just
then Forrest with his cavalry appeared at Johnsonville, on the
Tennessee River west of Nashville, and destroyed a great quantity
of property, General Thomas not having sufficient force available
to oppose him; hence on November 3 Thomas ordered me to come at
once by rail to Nashville with my corps, where I reported to him
with the advance of my troops on November 5. He then ordered me
to go at once with some of my troops to Johnsonville and dispose
of the Confederate cavalry there, and then to return to Nashville
and proceed to Pulaski, to take command of all the troops in the
field, which would then include the Fourth Corps, my own Twenty-
third, except the detachment left at Johnsonville, and the cavalry
watching Hood toward Florence. My duty at Johnsonville, where I
left two brigades, was soon disposed of; and I then returned to
Nashville, and went at once by rail to Pulaski, arriving at that
place in the evening of November 13.

Some so-called histories of the Tennessee campaign have been based
upon the theory that I was marching from Georgia to Tennessee, to
unite my corps with General Thomas's army at Nashville, when I
encountered Hood at Franklin, and after a sharp contest managed to
elude him and continue my march and unite with the Army of the
Cumberland at Nashville. Hence I wish to point out clearly that
I had been with the entire Twenty-third Corps to Nashville, with
a part of it to Johnsonville and back to Nashville, and thence to
Columbia and near Pulaski, all by rail; that all of the Army of
the Cumberland then in Tennessee was the Fourth Corps and the
cavalry at and near Pulaski; that General Thomas placed those troops
under my command, and that they remained