e absence of General John A. Logan; and the
Seventeenth Corps was commanded by Brigadier-General T. E. G.
Ransom, the senior officer present, in the absence of General Frank
P. Blair.

General Ransom was a young, most gallant, and promising officer,
son of the Colonel Ransom who was killed at Chapultepec, in the
Mexican War. He had served with the Army of the Tennessee in 1862
and 1863, at Vicksburg, where he was severely wounded. He was not
well at the time we started from Atlanta, but he insisted on going
along with his command. His symptoms became more aggravated on the
march, and when we were encamped near Gaylesville, I visited him in
company with Surgeon John Moors, United States Army, who said that
the case was one of typhoid fever, which would likely prove fatal.
A few days after, viz., the 28th, he was being carried on a litter
toward Rome; and as I rode from Gaylesville to Rome, I passed him
by the way, stopped, and spoke with him, but did not then suppose
he was so near his end. The next day, however, his escort reached
Rome, bearing his dead body. The officer in charge reported that,
shortly after I had passed, his symptoms became so much worse that
they stopped at a farmhouse by the road-side, where he died that
evening. His body was at once sent to Chicago for burial, and a
monument has been ordered by the Society of the Army of the
Tennessee to be erected in his memory.

On the 26th of October I learned that Hood's whole army had made
its appearance about Decatur, Alabama, and at once caused a strong
reconnoissance to be made down the Coosa to near Gadsden, which
revealed the truth that the enemy was gone except a small force of
cavalry, commanded by General Wheeler, which had been left to watch
us. I then finally resolved on my future course, which was to
leave Hood to be encountered by General Thomas, while I should
carry into full effect the long-contemplated project of marching
for the sea-coast, and thence to operate toward Richmond. But it
was all-important to me and to our cause that General Thomas should
have an ample force, equal to any and every emergency.

He then had at Nashville about eight or ten thousand new troops,
and as many more civil employs of the Quartermaster's Department,
which were not suited for the field, but would be most useful in
manning the excellent forts that already covered Nashville. At
Chattanooga, he had General Steedman's division, about five
thousand m