Hoping that in case of an attack this division would in turn catch the attacking force in case of battle, Indeed, I expected to hear the fire of its skirmishers by noon. General Davis was sick that day, and Brigadier- General Morgan commanded the division which had marched early for Turner's Ferry, by many of the roads laid down on our maps did not exist at all, and General Morgan was delayed thereby. I rode back to make more particular inquiries as to this division, and had just reached General Davis' headquarters at Proctor's Creek when I heard musketry open heavily on the right. The enemy had come out of Atlanta by the Bell's Ferry road and formed his masses i n the open fields behind a swell of ground, and after the artillery firing I have described advanced in parallel lines directly against the Fifteenth Corps, expecting to catch that flank in "air". His advance was magnificent, but founded on an error that cost him sadly, for our men colly and deliberately cut down his men, and, in spite of the efforts of the rebel officers, his ranks broke and fled. But they were rallied again and again, as often as six times at some points, and a few of the rebel officers and men reached our line of rail piles only to be killed or hauled over as prisoners. These assaults occurred from noon until about 4 p. m., when the enemy disappeared, leaving his dead and wounded in our hands. As many as 642 dead were counted and buried, and still others are know to have been buried which were not counted by the regularly detailed burial parties. General Logan on this occasion was conspicuous as on the 22d, his corps being chiefly engaged, but General Howard had drawn from the other corps (Sixteenth and Seventeenth) certain reserves, which were near at hand but not used. Our entire loss is reported at less than 600, whereas that of the enemy was in killed and wounded not less than 5,000.

Had General Davis' division come up on the Bell's Ferry road as I calculated at any time before 4 o'clock, what was simply a complete repulse would have been a disastrous rout to the enemy, but I cannot attribute the failure to want of energy or intelligence, and must charge it, like many other things in the campaign, to the peculiar, tangled nature of the forests and absence of roads that would admit the rapid movement of troops.

This affair terminated all efforts of the enemy to check our extensions by the flank, which afterward proceeded with comparative ease, but he met our extension to the south by rapid and well constructed forts and rifle- pits built between us and the railroad to and below East Point, remaining perfectly on the defensive. Finding that the right flank of the Army of the Tennessee did not reach, I was forced to shift General Schofield to that flank also, and afterward General Palmer's corps, of General Thomas' army. General Schofield moved from the left on the 1st of August, and General Palmer's corps followed at one, taking a line below Utoy Creek, and General Schofield prolonged it to a point near East Point. The enemy made no offensive opposition, but watched our movement and extended his lines and parapets accordingly.

About this time several changes in important commands occurred which should be noted. General Hooker, offended that General Howard was preferred to him as the successor of General McPherson, resigned his command of the Twentieth Corps, to which General Slocum was appointed; but he was at Vicksburg, and until he joined