Thursday, 23d–We were up all night throwing up breastworks, finishing them about noon today. The rebels opened up their battery on Little Kenesaw mountain, but did no harm. General Leggett on the right made a demonstration before the rebel lines, but was not engaged and soon fell back again.[1] All is quiet on the right. The Sixteenth Corps was ordered out on an expedition with fifteen days’ rations, but we do not know their destination. We received orders to be ready to march at a moment’s warning, with two days’ rations. William Cross of Company E returned from the hospital after an absence of ten months.
[1] I remember quite distinctly seeing General Sherman with his staff officers riding along our lines, taking in the lay of the country. They had just passed by where I was stationed, when they halted near one of our batteries and began using their field glasses, taking a view of the enemy’s lines. At that same time a Confederate general with his staff rode out of the timber upon an open knoll to take a view of our lines with their glasses. This was too good a chance for our battery, so the gunners, taking good aim, fired five or six shots at the mark, and one of them hit and killed the Confederate general, who the signal corps reported was a General Pope. Our signal corps had learned the signs of the Confederate signal service and at once reported the facts. The Confederates claimed that General Sherman himself had aimed the shot which killed their general, but such is not the case.—A. G. D.