Com'd'g Corps._

General French's dispatch, forwarded by yourself, is just received.
Gen. Hood directs me to say that he does not know where a division
could march at this time to give any assistance to Gen. French, but
that you will endeavor to send some scouts to him, and direct him to
leave the railroad and march to the West, to New Hope Church.

Gen. Hood does not understand how Gen. French could be _cut off_ at
the point he designates in his dispatch, as he should have moved
directly away from the railroad to the West, if he deemed his
position precarious.

A. P. M."

It is of course obvious from the map that if French found Sherman
approaching from the South, he had only to follow westward the road up
which he had been charging at Allatoona all day and free himself from
danger in an hour. It would be of interest to see this dispatch of
French's and observe the hour when sent, but it is not forthcoming. The
hour of the reply is significant. It need not have taken a mounted man
three hours to get word to Stewart, then near a junction with Hood and to
Hood himself, less than 15 miles away. The reply, made at once, is written
at 8:15 p. m., and French's message must certainly have been sent later
than 4 p. m. French had probably been gone from Allatoona an hour or more
when he bethought him to send the request for a division to extricate him.

The facts are, that it was not until the night of Oct. 5th that the
nearest troops of Sherman's went into camp at Brushy Mountain, 11 miles
distant in an air line, and none reached Allatoona until the 7th.

But to return to French. It was really an immense pity that he should feel
obliged to leave just when he had but to put forth his hand to snatch the
prize; but then it would not do to have his division cut off from the
army, and on the whole it might be well to start, and if so, why not at
once?

So about 1:30 he says an order was sent to Sears and Cockerell to
withdraw. The ground was too rough to carry badly wounded men over it, so
that those who could not get away on their own feet had to be left.

The artillery, unable to operate effectively with the assaulting column
close up on the works, had already been in part ordered to take the road,
and after the assaulting troops had left, French went to the two regiments
who had supported it, and sent a battery to the block house at the railway
crossing of Allatoona Creek