We were up all night throwing up breastworks, finishing them
about noon today. The rebels opened up their battery on Little Kenesaw
mountain, but did no harm. General Leggett on the right made a demonstration
before the rebel lines, but was not engaged and soon fell back again.1
All is quiet on the right. The Sixteenth Corps was ordered out on an expedition
with fifteen days' rations, but we do not know their destination. We received
orders to be ready to march at a moment's warning, with two days' rations.
William Cross of Company E returned from the hospital after an absence of ten
months.
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1 I remember quite distinctly seeing General
Sherman with his staff officers riding along our lines, taking in the lay of
the country. They had just passed by where I was stationed, when they halted
near one of our batteries and began using their field glasses, taking a view of
the enemy's lines. At that same time a Confederate general with his staff rode
out of the timber upon an open knoll to take a view of our lines with their
glasses. This was too good a chance for our battery, so the gunners, taking good
aim, fired five or six shots at the mark, and one of them hit and killed the
Confederate general, who the signal corps reported was a General Pope. Our
signal corps had learned the signs of the Confederate signal service and at
once reported the facts. The Confederates claimed that General Sherman himself
had aimed the shot which killed their general, but such is not the case. — A.
G. D.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 200
