my command from the time of the separation of the Twenty-third Army Corps from the main army, under General Sherman, to the present time.

On the 30th of October, 1864, at Rome, Ga., I received the order of Major-General Sherman [inclosed herewith and marked A*], directing me to march with the Twenty-third Corps to Resaca, Ga., and report by telegraph to Major-General Thomas, then at Nashville, for further orders. I marched on the following day and arrived at Resaca on the 1st of November reporting by telegraph to Major-General Thomas from Calhoun on the afternoon of the 31st of October.

At Calhoun, on the 1st of November, I received orders from Major-General Thomas [inclosed herewith and marked B+], directing me to move via Tullahoma to Pulaski, Tenn., which was subsequently changed, and I was ordered to move by way of Nashville and to send my wagon trains forward to Chattanooga. Accordingly the troops commenced to move as soon as the first railroad trains arrived, which was the 3rd of November, but owing to delays in the railroads the last of the troops did not reach Nashville until the 9th of November. I arrived at Nashville in person on the 5th of November, and received the orders of the commanding general to go to Johnsonville instead of Pulaski, to repel an attack then being made on that place by a rebel force under Forrest. My advance [Colonel Gallup's brigade of the Second Division] reached Johnsonville on the night of the 5th of November, and found the enemy had already retreated. Upon reporting this fact to the commanding general I was ordered to leave at Johnsonville such portion of my command as was necessary for a strong defense of that place, and to repair with the remainder of my troops to Pulaski and assume command of all the troops in that vicinity. I left two brigades [General Cooper's and Colonel Gallup's] at Johnsonville, with instructions to strongly fortify the place according to plans furnished by the chief engineer of the Department of the Cumberland; placed Colonel Strickland's brigade, Second Division, at Columbia, and the Third Division [General Cox's] about three miles north of Pulaski, the latter place being then occupied by the Fourth Army Corps, Major-General Stanley commanding.

My instructions from the major-general commanding were embraced in the accompanying telegram [marked C++] to Major-General Stanley, a copy of which was furnished with the order to assume command at Pulaski, and subsequent dispatches, explaining that the object was to hold the enemy in check, should he advance, long enough to enable General A. J. Smith's corps, then expected from Missouri, to reach Nashville, other troops in the Department of the Cumberland to be concentrated, and General Wilson's cavalry to be remounted and fitted for the field. The re-enforcements thus expected were about equal to the force we then had in the field, and would make our entire fore, when concentrated, equal or somewhat superior to that of the enemy. To effect this concentration was, therefore, of vital importance-a consideration to which all others were secondary. This required that the enemy's advance should be delayed as much as possible, and, at the same time, a decisive battle avoided unless it could be fought on favorable terms.

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*See Special Field Orders, No. 111, paragraph I, Vol. XXXIX, Part III, p.511.

+See Vol. XXXIX, Part III, p.538.

++See Vol. XXXIX, Part III, p.650.

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