had yet encountered. It had been built for some length of time, and had been located by good engineers. A few spent in reconnaissance showed us very plainly that it would cost many lives to carry the position by assault, even were an assault to succeed, which was extremely doubtful. It was accordingly deemed best to turn it. An inspection of the country showed us that this must be done by the left, since such a movement to right, owing to the broken character of the country, and the fact that the enemy, expecting us to move that way, had carefully guarded all the crossing-places, was almost impossible.

Having decided to pass the river by our left, strong demonstrations were made upon our right to confirm the enemy in the impression that the movement was to be made in that direction, and that we would attempt to cross the river at some point below the mouth of Nickajack Creek. The points selected for the crossing were at Roswell Factory and Phillips' (Isham's) Ferry, and the Army of the Tennessee, which has been demonstrating upon our right, was suddenly thrown to Roswell, where it crossed the Chattahoochee upon a trestle bridge, built by the pioneers of the Sixteenth Army Corps out of the materials at hand. No operation was made by the enemy. The Army of the Ohio, which had been on the left, now become the center, made a rapid movement across the river at Phillips' Ferry, surprising a small force of the enemy stationed there, and capturing one piece of artillery. While the force which actually effected the crossing was engaged in constructing some light works to serve as a bridge-head, two canvas pontoon bridges were thrown, upon which the balance of the Army of the Ohio crossed.

I amy make the general remark here that whenever it was deemed necessary to use a bridge for a greater length of time than forty-eight hours the pontoon bridges were invariably replaced by wooden trestle bridges constructed from the materials at hand, either by engineer troops or the pioneer force. The object of this was to preserve the canvas covers of the bateaux, even at the expense of considerable labor, since we had the latter in greater abundance than the former.

The canvas bridges at Phillips' Ferry were replaced by a trestle bridge built by the Engineer Battalion of the Twenty-third Army Corps. Another pontoon bridge was thrown meanwhile at Powers' Ferry, some two miles lower down upon which the Fourth Army Corps crossed. This corps formed a junction with the Army of the Ohio, but the Army of the Tennessee was still acting independently. One division of the Fourth Corps now swept down the south bank of the river to Pace's Ferry, which enabled us to build two pontoon bridges at this point, upon which the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps crossed. Two days before this the enemy, under influence of the presence of the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps, on the south side of the river, had crossed his whole force to that side, and left us in possession of the strong line on the north side, upon which so much care and labor had been bestowed. The passage of the Chattahoochee had now been completely effected. Our whole army was on the south side of the river, with a loss of less than a dozen men, but between us and Atlanta, our objective, were still the three serious obstacles of Nancy's Creek, Peach Tree Creek, and the entire rebel army. We knew but little about the country, and the inhabitants. always few in number and indisposed to give us information, had all gone farther south. Not an able-bodied man was to be