The next morning the Fifteenth Corps wheeled forward to the left over the battle-field of the day before, and Davis’s division still farther prolonged the line, which reached nearly to the ever-to-be-remembered “Sandtown road.”

Then, by further thinning out Thomas’s line, which was well entrenched, I drew another division of Palmer’s corps (Baird’s) around to the right, to further strengthen that flank.  I was impatient to hear from the cavalry raid, then four days out, and was watching for its effect, ready to make a bold push for the possession of East Point.  General Garrard’s division returned to Decatur on the 31st, and reported that General Stoneman had posted him at Flat Rock, while he (Stoneman) went on.  The month of July therefore closed with our infantry line strongly entrenched, but drawn out from the Augusta road on the left to the Sandtown road on the right, a distance of full ten measured miles.

The enemy, though evidently somewhat intimidated by the results of their defeats on the 22d and 28th, still presented a bold front at all points, with fortified lines that defied a direct assault.  Our railroad was done to the rear of our camps, Colonel W. P. Wright having reconstructed the bridge across the Chattahoochee in six days; and our garrisons and detachments to the rear had so effectually guarded the railroad that the trains from Nashville arrived daily, and our substantial wants were well supplied.

The month, though hot in the extreme, had been one of constant conflict, without intermission, and on four several occasions —­viz., July 4th, 20th, 22d, and 28th—­these affairs had amounted to real battles, with casualty lists by the thousands.  Assuming the correctness of the rebel surgeon Foard’s report, on page 577 of Johnston’s “Narrative,” commencing with July 4th and terminating with July 31st, we have: 

Aggregate loss of the enemy......... 10,841

Our losses, as compiled from the official returns for July, 1864, are: 
                     Killed and Missing.  Wounded.  Total.

Aggregate loss of July....... 3,804          5,915      9,719

In this table the column of “killed and missing” embraces the prisoners that fell into the hands of the enemy, mostly lost in the Seventeenth Corps, on the 22d of July, and does not embrace the losses in the cavalry divisions of Garrard and McCook, which, however, were small for July.  In all other respects the statement is absolutely correct.  I am satisfied, however, that Surgeon Foard could not have been in possession of data sufficiently accurate to enable him to report the losses in actual battle of men who never saw the hospital.  During the whole campaign I had rendered to me tri-monthly statements of “effective strength,” from which I carefully eliminated the figures not essential for my conduct, so that at all times I knew the exact fighting-strength of each corps, division, and brigade, of the whole army, and also endeavored to bear in mind our losses both on the several fields of battle and by sickness, and well remember that I always estimated that during the month of July we had inflicted heavier loss on the enemy than we had sustained ourselves, and the above figures prove it conclusively.  Before closing this chapter, I must record one or two minor events that occurred about this time, that may prove of interest.