[
31]
some four or five miles above
Pittsburgh, when they all get here.
From that point to
Corinth the road is good, and a junction can be formed with the troops from
Pittsburgh at almost any point. * * * *
I am, General, very respectfully your obedient servant.
Immediately after the battle,
General Sherman appears to have been won over to the idea that an abattis might be valuable as a protection to his camp, for in a compilation of his orders, made under his own direction, the very first of them which appears after the engagement, contains the following paragraph:
‘Each brigade commander will examine carefully his immediate front; fell trees to afford his men a barricade, and clear away all underbrush for two hundred yards in front, so as to uncover an approaching enemy; with these precautions, we can hold our camp against any amount of force that can be brought against us.’
There is no indication that
General Sherman considered this order either an evidence of weakness, or an invitation to attack, or as calculated to make his ‘raw men timid.’
That
General Halleck supposed the officers in charge of the camp had taken means to strengthen their position, is shown by the following telegram:
The enemy attacked our works at
Pittsburgh, Tennessee, yesterday, but was repulsed with heavy loss.
No details given.
General Buckland and
Major Ricker have both written an account of the reconnoissance on the 4th.
Starting at 2 P. M.,
General Buckland had come up with the enemy's cavalry about two miles in front of the camp.
Of what happened, what was seen, and what reported to
General Sherman,
General Buckland thus writes:
We pursued about a mile, when the enemy commenced firing artillery
