Johnston having retreated in the night of May 15th, immediate pursuit was begun.  A division of infantry (Jeff.  C. Davis’s) was at once dispatched down the valley toward Rome, to support Garrard’s cavalry, and the whole army was ordered to pursue, McPherson by Lay’s Ferry, on the right, Thomas directly by the railroad, and Schofield by the left, by the old road that crossed the Oostenaula above Echota or Newtown.

We hastily repaired the railroad bridge at Resaca, which had been partially burned, and built a temporary floating bridge out of timber and materials found on the spot; so that Thomas got his advance corps over during the 16th, and marched as far as Calhoun, where he came into communication with McPherson’s troops, which had crossed the Oostenaula at Lay’s Ferry by our pontoon-bridges, previously laid.  Inasmuch as the bridge at Resaca was overtaxed, Hooker’s Twentieth Corps was also diverted to cross by the fords and ferries above Resaca, in the neighborhood of Echota.

On the 17th, toward evening, the head of Thomas’s column, Newton’s division, encountered the rear-guard of Johnston’s army near Adairsville.  I was near the head of column at the time, trying to get a view of the position of the enemy from an elevation in an open field.  My party attracted the fire of a battery; a shell passed through the group of staff-officers and burst just beyond, which scattered us promptly.  The next morning the enemy had disappeared, and our pursuit was continued to Kingston, which we reached during Sunday forenoon, the 19th.

From Resaca the railroad runs nearly due south, but at Kingston it makes junction with another railroad from Rome, and changes direction due east.  At that time McPherson’s head of column was about four miles to the west of Kingston, at a country place called “Woodlawn;” Schofield and Hooker were on the direct roads leading from Newtown to Casaville, diagonal to the route followed by Thomas.  Thomas’s head of column, which had followed the country roads alongside of the railroad, was about four miles east of Kingston, toward Cassville, when about noon I got a message from him that he had found the enemy, drawn up in line of battle, on some extensive, open ground, about half-way between Kingston and Cassville, and that appearances indicated a willingness and preparation for battle.

Hurriedly sending orders to McPherson to resume the march, to hasten forward by roads leading to the south of Kingston, so as to leave for Thomas’s troops and trains the use of the main road, and to come up on his right, I rode forward rapidly, over some rough gravel hills, and about six miles from Kingston found General Thomas, with his troops deployed; but he reported that the enemy had fallen back in echelon of divisions, steadily and in superb order, into Cassville.  I knew that the roads by which Generals Hooker and Schofield were approaching would lead them to a seminary near Cassville, and that it was all-important to secure