enemies.
Only a soldier of fortune or a hireling can be a stranger to such
feelings. Yet I aver that I had not the slightest feeling of
personal enmity toward my old friend and classmate General Hood,
or his comrades. It was the "accursed politicians" who had led
them into such a fratricidal strife who were the objects of our
maledictions. But even that feeling has been softened by time,
and by reflection upon the deeper and more remote causes of the
war, and that the glorious fruits of final victory have amply
repaid, and will continue to repay in all time, for all those
immense sacrifices and sufferings.

Hood undoubtedly made a mistake in his plan of operations after he
crossed Duck River above Columbia on the night of November 28-9.
His march on Spring Hill would have been the best _if it had
succeeded_. But he failed to estimate accurately what he could
accomplish in a short winter day over a very bad road. In a long
day of summer, with that road in the usual summer condition, he
might have reached Spring Hill early in the afternoon, with force
enough to accomplish his purpose before night, if he had found a
single division, or even two divisions, there. But he failed simply
because he tried to do what was not possible.

When Hood crossed the river he was not more than five miles (his
own journal says three) from the left flank of my position on the
north bank. The intervening space was open fields, not much, if
any, more difficult for the march of infantry than the dirt road
he actually used. If he had moved directly upon my flank, he could
have brought on a general engagement about noon, with a force at
least equal to mine. In anticipation of such a movement, I sent
a brigade toward Huey's Mill to watch Hood's movements, and formed
line of battle facing in that direction and covering the turnpike
to Spring Hill, for which purpose I detained one of the two divisions
of Stanley's corps which, at first, had been ordered to Spring
Hill. I was willing to fight Hood in that position, and expected
to do so. But I felt relieved when I found he had undertaken the
much more difficult task of marching to Spring Hill, where I believed
sufficient preparations had been made to oppose him until I could
reach that place by a broad macadamized road over which I could
march rapidly by day or by night.

I now believe my judgment at that time was correct: That what I
had most to apprehend was not an attempt to get i