[271] of such a surprise, with the conviction that we should find the Federal army unprotected by intrenchments. These views seemed to satisfy General Johnston, and he authorized me to give the preparatory orders for the movement, which orders I wrote at a table in General Bragg's room, being a circular letter to Generals Bragg, Polk, and Hardee, directing them to hold their several corps in condition to move, at a moment's notice, having forty rounds of ammunition in their cartridge-boxes, and three days cooked rations in their haversacks; also, sixty rounds of ammunition, and uncooked rations in wagons, for, I think, three days, together with certain other details, affecting reserve supplies, and their transportation. These orders were immediately despatched by couriers, from General Bragg's headquarters, to Generals Polk and Hardee, who received them, as well as now remembered, at 1.40 A. M., as stated in the receipts signed by those officers, respectively, at the time. General Breckinridge, commanding a detached division at Beirnsville, received his orders from the telegraph-office. After having despatched the orders in question, I repaired directly to your headquarters, roused Captain A. R. Chisolm, of your personal staff, and told him to awake you at 5 A. M. About 7 A. M. of (next day) the 3d April, you sent for me, and I found that you had drawn up the notes of a general order, prescribing the order and method of the movement from Corinth upon Pittsburg, with peculiar minuteness, as, from the wooded and broken nature of the country to be traversed, it would be a most difficult matter to move so large a body of men with the requisite celerity for the contemplated attack. These notes you gave me as the basis for the proper general order to be issued, directing and regulating the march, coupled with the order in which the enemy was to be attacked, and from them I drew up the order of march and battle, which, issued in the name of General Johnston, was signed by me as Adjutant-General of the Army, in the course of that day, without any modification, but, of course, made fuller with details in connection with the staff service, which details you left habitually to me, holding me responsible that they should be clear and comprehensive, so as to insure the execution of your general plan of operation. But before I was able to shape the order in question, General Johnston and, soon thereafter, General Bragg, came to your room, at your headquarters, where I had gone also, to consult you upon some details. You were explaining your plan of movement, and of the attack, to General Johnston, when I entered your apartment; and, to make the subject clearer, you drew a sketch of the country, in pencil, upon your table,1 as I had taken to my office the sketch supplied by the engineers, to enable me to write the order with the necessary precision. General Johnston weighed all that was said with much deliberation, and not until every detail had been very thoroughly discussed did he decide to
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1 The table bearing the diagram here referred to went, as office furniture, to Charleston, S. C., where the pencil sketch on the board was visible two years afterwards.
1883. Harper. New York.
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