information of
the enemy. We are now in Georgia, twenty miles from Chattanooga by the
direct road, which, like all roads here, is very crooked, and difficult
to travel. The enemy is, doubtless, in force very near, but he makes no
demonstrations and retires his pickets without firing a gun. The
developments of the next week or two will be matters for the historian.

Sheridan's division is just coming into the valley; what other troops
are to cross the mountain by this road I do not know. As I write, heavy
guns are heard off in the direction of Chattanooga. The roads are
extremely dusty. This morning I consigned to the flames all letters
which have come to me during the last two months.

I have just returned from a ride up the valley to the site of the
proposed iron works of Georgia. Work on the railroad, on the mountain
roads, and on the furnaces, was suspended on our approach. The negroes
and white laborers were run off to get them beyond our reach. The hills
in the vicinity of the proposed works are undoubtedly full of iron; the
ore crops out so plainly that it is visible to all passers. Here the
Confederacy proposed to supply its railroads with iron rail, an article
at present very nearly exhausted in the South. Had the Georgians
possessed common business sense and common energy, extensive furnaces
would have been in operation in this valley years ago; and now, instead
of a few poorly cultivated corn-fields, with here and there a cabin, the
valley and hillsides would be overflowing with population and wealth.

We returned from the site of the iron works by way of Trenton, the seat
of justice of Dade county. Reynolds and Sheridan are encamped near
Trenton. I feel better since my ride.

6. (Sunday.) Marched to Johnson's Crook, and bivouacked, at nightfall,
at McKay's Spring, on the north side of Lookout mountain; here my
advance regiment, the Forty-second Indiana, had a slight skirmish with
the enemy, in which one man was wounded.

7. We gained the summit of Lookout mountain, and the enemy retired to
the gaps on the south side.

8. Started at four o'clock in the morning and pushed for Cooper's Gap.
Surprised a cavalry picket at the foot of the mountain, in McLemore's
Cove, Chattanooga valley. In this little affair we captured five
sabers, one revolver, one carbine, one prisoner, and seriously wounded
one man.

While standing on a peak of Lookout, we saw far off to the east long
lines of dust trending slowly to