General Thomas at once assumed command of the right wing, and, until we reached Corinth, I served immediately under his command.  We were classmates, intimately acquainted, had served together before in the old army, and in Kentucky, and it made to us little difference who commanded the other, provided the good cause prevailed.

Corinth was about thirty miles distant, and we all knew that we should find there the same army with which we had so fiercely grappled at Shiloh, reorganized, reenforced, and commanded in chief by General Beauregard in place of Johnston, who had fallen at Shiloh.  But we were also reenforced by Buell’s and Pope’s armies; so that before the end of April our army extended from Snake Creek on the right to the Tennessee River, at Hamburg, on the left, and must have numbered nearly one hundred thousand men.

Ample supplies of all kinds reached us by the Tennessee River, which had a good stage of water; but our wagon transportation was limited, and much confusion occurred in hauling supplies to the several camps.  By the end of Aril, the several armies seemed to be ready, and the general forward movement on Corinth began.  My division was on the extreme right of the right wing, and marched out by the “White House,” leaving Monterey or Pea Ridge to the south.  Crossing Lick Creek, we came into the main road about a mile south of Monterey, where we turned square to the right, and came into the Purdy road, near “Elams.”  Thence we followed the Purdy road to Corinth, my skirmishers reaching at all times the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.  Of course our marches were governed by the main centre, which followed the direct road from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth; and this movement was provokingly slow.  We fortified almost every camp at night, though we had encountered no serious opposition, except from cavalry, which gave ground easily as we advanced.  The opposition increased as we neared Corinth, and at a place called Russell’s we had a sharp affair of one brigade, under the immediate direction of Brigadier-General Morgan L. Smith, assisted by the brigade of General Denver.  This affair occurred on the 19th of May, and our line was then within about two miles of the northern intrenchments of Corinth.

On the 27th I received orders from General Halleck “to send a force the next day to drive the rebels from the house in our front, on the Corinth road, to drive in their pickets as far as possible, and to make a strong demonstration on Corinth itself;” authorizing me to call on any adjacent division for assistance.

I reconnoitred the ground carefully, and found that the main road led forward along the fence of a large cotton-field to our right front, and ascended a wooded hill, occupied in some force by the enemy, on which was the farm-house referred to in General Halleck’s orders.  At the farther end of the field was a double log-house, whose chinking had been removed; so that it formed a good block house from which the enemy could fire on any person approaching from our quarter.