The battle of July 22d is usually called the battle of Atlanta.  It extended from the Howard House to General Giles A. Smith’s position, about a mile beyond the Augusta Railroad, and then back toward Decatur, the whole extent of ground being fully seven miles.  In part the ground was clear and in part densely wooded.  I rode over the whole of it the next day, and it bore the marks of a bloody conflict.  The enemy had retired during the night inside of Atlanta, and we remained masters of the situation outside.  I purposely allowed the Army of the Tennessee to fight this battle almost unaided, save by demonstrations on the part of General Schofield and Thomas against the fortified lines to their immediate fronts, and by detaching, as described, one of Schofield’s brigades to Decatur, because I knew that the attacking force could only be a part of Hood’s army, and that, if any assistance were rendered by either of the other armies, the Army of the Tennessee would be jealous.  Nobly did they do their work that day, and terrible was the slaughter done to our enemy, though at sad cost to ourselves, as shown by the following reports: 

Headquarters military division of the Mississippi
in the field near Atlanta, July 23,1864.

General Halleck, Washington, D. C.

Yesterday morning the enemy fell back to the intrenchments proper of the city of Atlanta, which are in a general circle, with a radius of one and a half miles, and we closed in.  While we were forming our lines, and selecting positions for our batteries, the enemy appeared suddenly out of the dense woods in heavy masses on our extreme left, and struck the Seventeenth Corps (General Blair) in flank, and was forcing it back, when the Sixteenth Corps (General Dodge) came up and checked the movement, but the enemy’s cavalry got well to our rear, and into Decatur, and for some hours our left flank was completely enveloped.  The fight that resulted was continuous until night, with heavy loss on both sides.  The enemy took one of our batteries (Murray’s, of the Regular Army) that was marching in its place in column in the road, unconscious of danger.  About 4 p.m. the enemy sallied against the division of General Morgan L. Smith, of the Fifteenth Corps, which occupied an abandoned line of rifle-trench near the railroad east of the city, and forced it back some four hundred yards, leaving in his hands for the time two batteries, but the ground and batteries were immediately after recovered by the same troops reenforced.  I cannot well approximate our loss, which fell heavily on the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, but count it as three thousand; I know that, being on the defensive, we have inflicted equally heavy loss on the enemy.

General McPherson, when arranging his troops about 11.00 A.M., and passing from one column to another, incautiously rode upon an ambuscade without apprehension, at some distance ahead of his staff and orderlies, and was shot dead.