Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/328

 320 Southern Historical Society Payers.

plan of attacking had been frustrated by General Hood. Our oppor- tunity to attack was when the Federal army was divided a part at Kingston, another part on the road from Adairsville.

To attack Sherman's concentrated army would have been inex- pressibly absurd. General Hood expressed no such idea at the time. To postpone the attack from the afternoon, when the Federals were entrenching, until the next morning, when they were entrenched, would have been stupid.

Very truly yours,

J. E. JOHNSTON.

SAVANNAH, GA., June 30, 1875.

To J. A. Chalaron, Esq., Chairman, etc.:

MY DEAR SIR Your favor of the 25th and inclosures are just received. I regret very much not to have the means of contributing to your interesting object. The records of the army belonged to it, of course, and, I apprehend were lost, or greatly reduced, by the march into and out of Tennessee in the last days of 1864. All that was then saved is now in possession of Colonel Kinloch Falconer, of Holly Springs, Miss. You may remember him as assistant-adjutant- general of the army. I have just written to request him to give you any information contained in his records. General Bragg' s arrange- ment of the artillery of Tennessee was a reserve of six or eight batteries under a lieutenant-colonel, and a distribution of the re- mainder a battery brigade. In the early spring of 1864, it was more completely organized into a reserve of three or four battalions, under a brigadier-general, and into regiments one for each corps.

I wish very much that the application for service with me, made by the company March 4, 1865, had been received, for I should have had a very great pleasure ten years sooner, that of knowing that one of the truest and bravest bodies of Confederate troops with which I served in trying times, gave me the confidence it inspired in all those who ever commanded it. Nothing that I have read in the last ten years has touched my heart like the copy of that application. Such proofs of favorable opinion and friendly feeling of the best class of our countrymen is rich compensation to an old man, for the sacrifice of the results of the labors of a life-time.