The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[335] 51: It is stated that the Seventeenth Corps, lately arrived, with new regiments, and returned furloughed men, “equaled the Federal losses by battle, sickness, and by detachments,” so that the three armies still aggregated about one hundred thousand effective men. According to the table on page 136, they aggregated one hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred men. On the same page, below, it is said that the Confederates had signal stations and fresh lines of parapets on Kenesaw, Lost Mountain and Pine Mount. Kenesaw was not occupied by our (Southern) troops until the 19th, and Lost Mountain was abandoned on the 8th. Our only signal stations were on Kenesaw, as an observatory, and at headquarters. Page 53: The circumstances of General Polk's death were these: He had accompanied General Hardee and me to Pine Mount to reconnoitre. We placed ourselves in a battery near the summit, on the enemy's side. After seeing everything that interested us, we turned to leave the place. As we did so a cannon shot from a battery opposite, probably fired at a crowd of soldiers on the summit behind us, passed over us. A second came after about a minute, and a minute later, while we were walking slowly toward our horses, General Polk being on the very top of the hill, a third shot passed through the middle of his chest, from left to right. He was lifeless when I reached him in a few seconds, for we were but twenty or thirty feet apart. A brisk fire of artillery (shell) commenced soon after; there had been no volleys, and there was no signal station there.

Page 54: “We captured a good many prisoners, among them a whole infantry regiment, the Fourteenth Alabama, three hundred and twenty strong.” The occurrences of the day made this highly improbable, if not impossible — it was the 15th. On the 16th, a company of skirmishers was forgotten in a change of position, and captured. Page 55: “The Confederate intrenchment was much smaller than that described — a ditch about two feet deep, the earth thrown up on the outside, making a parapet two feet and a half high, surmounted with a head log.” We had no intrenching tools, a disadvantage for which all the mountain streams and forests of Georgia would not have compensated. Page 56: “These successive contractions of the enemy's line encouraged us and discouraged him, but were doubtless justified by strong reasons. On the 20th, Johnston's position was unusually strong;” by which his troops were greatly encouraged-indeed, made confident. Pages 59 and 60: The reports upon which General Sherman's telegram of the 23d was based, were extremely inaccurate. Johnston had not half so many miles of connected or other trenches as he. The Federal army had gained no