During the whole month of April the preparations for active war were going on with extreme vigor, and my letter-book shows an active correspondence with Generals Grant, Halleck, Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield on thousands of matters of detail and arrangement, most of which are embraced in my testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol. i., Appendix.

When the time for action approached, viz., May 1,1864, the actual
armies prepared to move into Georgia resulted as follows, present
for battle: 
                                   Men. 
Army of the Cumberland, Major-General Thomas. 
Infantry ....................... 54,568
Artillery ...................... 2,377
Cavalry......................... 3,828
        Aggregate............... 60,773
Number of field-guns, 130.

Army of the Tennessee, Major-General McPHERSON.

Infantry ....................... 22,437
Artillery ......................  1,404
Cavalry ........................    624
Aggregate ............. 24,465
Guns, 96

Army of the Ohio, Major-General Schofield.

Infantry ....................... 11,183
Artillery.......................    679
Cavalry.........................  1,697
Aggregate .............. 13,559
Guns, 28.

Grand aggregate, 98,797 men and 254 guns

These figures do not embrace the cavalry divisions which were still incomplete, viz., of General Stoneman, at Lexington, Kentucky, and of General Garrard, at Columbia, Tennessee, who were then rapidly collecting horses, and joined us in the early stage of the campaign.  General Stoneman, having a division of about four thousand men and horses, was attached to Schofield’s Army of the Ohio.  General Garrard’s division, of about four thousand five hundred men and horses, was attached to General Thomas’s command; and he had another irregular division of cavalry, commanded by Brigadier-General E. McCook.  There was also a small brigade of cavalry, belonging to the Army of the Cumberland, attached temporarily to the Army of the Tennessee, which was commanded by Brigadier-General Judson Kilpatrick.  These cavalry commands changed constantly in strength and numbers, and were generally used on the extreme flanks, or for some special detached service, as will be herein-after related.  The Army of the Tennessee was still short by the two divisions detached with General Banks, up Red River, and two other divisions on furlough in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, but which were rendezvousing at Cairo, under Generals Leggett and Crocker, to form a part of the Seventeenth Corps, which corps was to be commanded by Major-General Frank P. Blair, then a member of Congress, in Washington.  On the 2d of April I notified him by letter that I wanted him to join and to command these two divisions, which ought to be ready by the 1st of May.  General Blair, with these two divisions, constituting the Seventeenth Army Corps, did not actually overtake us until we reached Acworth and Big Shanty, in Georgia, about the 9th of June, 1864.