Hooker’s signal-message of the day before.  He was very angry, and pretty sharp words passed between them, Schofield saying that his head of column (Hascall’s division) had been, at the time of the battle, actually in advance of Hooker’s line; that the attack or sally of the enemy struck his troops before it did Hooker’s; that General Hooker knew of it at the time; and he offered to go out and show me that the dead men of his advance division (Hascall’s) were lying farther out than any of Hooker’s.  General Hooker pretended not to have known this fact.  I then asked him why he had called on me for help, until he had used all of his own troops; asserting that I had just seen Butterfield’s division, and had learned from him that he had not been engaged the day before at all; and I asserted that the enemy’s sally must have been made by one corps (Hood’s), in place of three, and that it had fallen on Geary’s and Williams’s divisions, which had repulsed the attack handsomely.  As we rode away from that church General Hooker was by my side, and I told him that such a thing must not occur again; in other words, I reproved him more gently than the occasion demanded, and from that time he began to sulk.  General Hooker had come from the East with great fame as a “fighter,” and at Chattanooga he was glorified by his “battle above the clouds,” which I fear turned his head.  He seemed jealous of all the army commanders, because in years, former rank, and experience, he thought he was our superior.

On the 23d of June I telegraphed to General Halleck this summary, which I cannot again better state: 

We continue to press forward on the principle of an advance against fortified positions.  The whole country is one vast fort, and Johnston must have at least fifty miles of connected trenches, with abatis and finished batteries.  We gain ground daily, fighting all the time.  On the 21st General Stanley gained a position near the south end of Kenesaw, from which the enemy attempted in vain to drive him; and the same day General T. J. Wood’s division took a hill, which the enemy assaulted three times at night without success, leaving more than a hundred dead on the ground.  Yesterday the extreme right (Hooker and Schofield) advanced on the Powder Springs road to within three miles of Marietta.  The enemy made a strong effort to drive them away, but failed signally, leaving more than two hundred dead on the field.  Our lines are now in close contact, and the fighting is incessant, with a good deal of artillery-fire.  As fast as we gain one position the enemy has another all ready, but I think he will soon have to let go Kenesaw, which is the key to the whole country.  The weather is now better, and the roads are drying up fast.  Our losses are light, and, not-withstanding the repeated breaks of the road to our rear, supplies are ample.