mounted infantry was here permanently assigned to duty with me for reconnoitering purposes. In the advance from Kingston to Dallas, as in fact generally on the march, I have been with the advance, gaining information, learning the roads, character of country, &c. From the 27th to the 31st of May, while the army was before the enemy near Dallas, two lines of intrenchments were constructed. On the 27th General McPherson sent me to reconnoiter the right flank of our army, it having been reported that the enemy were massing there. On the 28th I was directed to select a position for the Army of the Tennessee on the right of the Twentieth Corps, which was then the right flank of the left wing of the grand army, and some two and a half to three miles north, near New Hope Church. This I did, and on the following day conducted staff officers of each corps to it, and pointed out the positions for their corps in the movement of the army to the left, which was expected to take place on the night of the 29th. Several demonstrations made by the enemy during the night, however, prevented the movement. I again reconnoitered to the right on the 31st. During the 31st and the night of the 31st a line of breast-works was thrown up, under the superintendence of the corps engineers, 500 or 600 yards to the rear, to be held by the rear guard in the withdrawal of the troops on the 1st of June.

The army withdrew on the 1st of June. I this day put in position General Sweeny, Second Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, on the allatoona and Dallas road, one mile south of the Burnt Hickory and New Hope Church road, covering the right, and Lieutenant-Colonel tiedemann intrenched the position. June 3 and 4, I was reconnoitering roads toward Burnt Church, and on the 4th, Lieutenant-Colonel Tiedemann and Captain Percy, engineers, with their pioneer corps, cut a road some four miles to Burnt Church, parallel to the main road, and this was, on the 5th followed by one of the columns of the Army of the Tennessee. The enemy left the front ont he night of the 4th. The army having marched to Acworth on the 6th, on the 7th I went from that place to Allatoona with Generals Sherman and McPherson, and yourself, and on the 7th and 8th accompanied yourself in making a thorough reconnaissance of the pass and the country as far as the Etowah bridge. Instructions for making an intrenched position at the pass, including the construction of five small redoubts, were given to Colonel Malmborg, chief engineer of the Seventeenth Army Corps. (This corps had just reached the Etowah bridge on the 7th, and joined the main army on the 8th.) The army advanced from Acworth on the 10th, confronted the enemy around the Kenesaw Mountain until the 2nd of July. During this time the engineers were constantly employed in building intrenchments. Not less than three distinct lines were made, as the troops advanced from position to position. O the night of the 18th the enemy left a strong position on the right, running from the base of Kenesaw Mountain east, down the bluffs on the Noonday Creek; their breast-works were remodeled to suit our position. On the night of the 26th I conducted the Second Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, to a position, that I had been ordered to select during the day, for massing this division preparatory to an attack on Little Kenesaw on the following day. As directed by you, on the 28th I assumed control of the pontoon train belonging to this army, which had just arrived from Nashville. Captain Kossak, who had been with the Sixteenth Army Corps as

5 R R-VOL XXXVIII, PT III