Cumberland, was required to guard and protect the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta. This order was what every one would have looked for, inasmuch as the Army of the Cumberland moved with about-effective men, and the Army of the Tennessee with about 23,000, with the Seventeenth Corps, some 8,000, coming up and expected to join during the campaign. I have been frequently promised that my troops on the railroad should be ordered forward so as to give my command something like respectable numbers. Although I am not the commander of the Army of the Tennessee, yet I hope that I may be pardoned for using its numbers in order to show, if possible, that my command has been required to perform more railroad duty than my other one, and contrary to the orders issued from DIVISION headquarters. It is said, I know, that General Thomas is guarding the railroads from Louisville on the Kentucky line, and has some 40,000 men or there-abouts kept from the field, or perhaps more than on such duty, yet this does not prevent his army in the field from being a magnificent army, enough to crush Hood in any battle. If this argument is proved it might be said that the Army of the Tennessee had over 100,000 men doing duty on the MISSISSIPPI River, and in other departments than this, and what is here is but a very small portion of their forces.

If you will take the number of men composing these two armies and aggregate the details for guard duty from Marietta to Chattanooga, I am furnishing from my command more than the whole of the rest of the two armies. This I have not before complained of, nor do I desire now to be understood as complaining of any duty that my command has performed, but if I am expected to perform good work hereafter I do think that I should have the remainder of my command ordered to me. I believe that no one corps of the whole army since we took the field at Chattanooga on the 6th of May has had to furnish one whole DIVISION for guard duty and had them kept separated from the command the whole time except the Fifteenth Corps. Why my corps should be the one of all the armies that shall be shorn of its strength I cannot conceive. Has the Fifteenth Corps ever failed anywhere to do its part, or at least the part assigned it? Have I, as the commander, been derelict in my duty? If so I am sorry that I have not been informed of it. I find corps in the army making some 20,000 or upward, saved intact during the whole campaign, that have not been engaged with the enemy so often as the Fifteenth. Though small, this was not their fault, perhaps, but at the same time it would seem that numbers added to my command borne upon my rolls doing duty elsewhere would have been of great importance on many occasions. You will find that the strength of my command when the campaign commenced was 16,255. One DIVISION being used as I have before stated, left me effective 12,429. I have lost during the campaign from my three DIVISIONS in ttwo DIVISION, 4,743 killed, wounded, and missing. My troops guarding railroad now under 4,392 effective. If I am not allowed to have these men ordered to me it will be me a loss for active service in the next campaign of 9,135 from my command since May 1, 1864, which reduces it very materially. It is true that convalescents are coming forward that will increase it somewhat, and I suppose that the same thing is true of other commands and they increase in the same ration.

As a corps commander I ask only that I may have the same allowed to me as others, no more, if I am worthy of the same consideration.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. LOGAN,

Major-General, Commanding.