NEAR CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER, July 11, 1864-7 a. m.

Major General JOHN A. LOGAN,

Commanding Fifteenth Army Corps:

Major-General Stoneman having gone on an expedition with his cavalry, thus it necessary to picket the river between the mouth of the Nickajack and Sweet Water with infantry, you will send one of your divisions to some point on the Sandtown road near Widow Mitchell's with instructions to the commanding officer to station one brigade at the intersection of the Sandtown and Howell's Ferry roads, sometimes called the "Alabama Cross-Roads." A portion of General Blair's command is picketing the river, and your division will be in the nature of a reserve to cover our trains, &c., until the cavalry returns. Instruct the officer in command of the brigade to be stationed at the cross-roads to communicate with Blair's troops near Sandtown Ferry.

Yours, truly,

JAS. B. McPHERSON,

Major-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, near Chattahoochee, July 11, 1864.

Colonel W. W. WRIGHT,

Superintendent Railroad Construction, Marietta:

I will want an accumulation of stores in Allatoona Pass, and suggest you lay down a side track between the bridge and Allatoona depot about where the old foundry was. The quartermaster will erect temporary sheds.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, near Chattahoochee River, July 11, 1864.

Major-General STEEDMAN,

Commanding District of the Etowah:

GENERAL: The importance of your command to the success of my operations is, I know, already appreciated by you; but when I suggest any additional work or precaution, I beg you to consider it as resulting from my supposed large experience in the military art. In the first place, I fear that our infantry officers suppose if cavalry comes about, they are excused from doing anything but to defend their own posts. This is not so. Infantry can always whip cavalry, and in a wooded and mountainous country can actually thwart it, and even at times capture it. Of course, as a general rule, a footman cannot catch a horseman on a fair open road or country, but nothing is more awkward in a wooded and mountainous country than a command of cavalry forced to go through narrow defiles, across streams at particular fords or bridges, or up and down certain valleys which can be seen from the mountain tops and ambushed. I have not yet seen in this war a cavalry command of a thousand that was not afraid of the sight of a dozen infantry bayonets, for the reason that the cavalry, to be effective, has to have a road or smooth field; whereas the infantryman steps into the bushes and is safe, or can block a road in five minutes and laugh at the man on horseback.