All the orders were given, and the morning of the 27th was fixed for commencing the movement.  On the 26th I received from General Stoneman a note asking permission (after having accomplished his orders to break up the railroad at Jonesboro) to go on to Macon to rescue our prisoners of war known to be held there, and then to push on to Andersonville, where was the great depot of Union prisoners, in which were penned at one time as many as twenty-three thousand of our men, badly fed and harshly treated.  I wrote him an answer consenting substantially to his proposition, only modifying it by requiring him to send back General Garrard’s division to its position on our left flank after he had broken up the railroad at Jonesboro.  Promptly, and on time, all got off, and General Dodge’s corps (the Sixteenth, of the Army of the Tennessee) reached its position across Proctor’s Creek the same evening, and early the next morning (the 28th) Blair’s corps (the Seventeenth) deployed on his right, both corps covering their front with the usual parapet; the Fifteenth Corps (General Logan’s) came up that morning on the right of Blair, strongly refused, and began to prepare the usual cover.  As General Jeff.  C. Davis’s division was, as it were, left out of line, I ordered it on the evening before to march down toward Turner’s Ferry, and then to take a road laid down on our maps which led from there toward East Point, ready to engage any enemy that might attack our general right flank, after the same manner as had been done to the left flank on the 22d.

Personally on the morning of the 28th I followed the movement, and rode to the extreme right, where we could hear some skirmishing and an occasional cannon-shot.  As we approached the ground held by the Fifteenth Corps, a cannon-ball passed over my shoulder and killed the horse of an orderly behind; and seeing that this gun enfiladed the road by which we were riding, we turned out of it and rode down into a valley, where we left our horses and walked up to the hill held by Morgan L. Smith’s division of the Fifteenth Corps.  Near a house I met Generals Howard and Logan, who explained that there was an intrenched battery to their front, with the appearance of a strong infantry support.  I then walked up to the ridge, where I found General Morgan L. Smith.  His men were deployed and engaged in rolling logs and fence-rails, preparing a hasty cover.  From this ridge we could overlook the open fields near a meeting-house known as “Ezra Church,” close by the Poor-House.  We could see the fresh earth of a parapet covering some guns (that fired an occasional shot), and there was also an appearance of activity beyond.  General Smith was in the act of sending forward a regiment from, his right flank to feel the position of the enemy, when I explained to him and to Generals Logan and Howard that they must look out for General Jeff.  C. Davis’s division, which was coming up from the direction of Turner’s Ferry.