HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Resaca, May 16, 1864.
General J. B. McPHERSON,
Commanding Army of the Tennessee:
GENERAL: I will attend General Thomas’ army to-morrow and hope to reach Adairsville. You had better mass your men a little in front of Calhoun, and when you know Thomas is advancing south of Calhoun keep abreast or a little ahead of him. I presume you are all across the Oostanaula. You may order the pontoon train to take up the bridge and follow you to the Etowah. Thomas has a trestle bridge, here, one pontoon, and one made on the wreck of the railroad bridge, yet the passage has been slower than I estimated. I will push the column to-morrow. Hooker is off to the right [left] somewhere, but not at Newtown. The road laid down on the cloth map by McGuire’s and Woodland is your true course, provided the enemy has on my theory retreated on Allatoona. Bear in mind that Garrard’s cavalry is in your front, and that Jeff. Davis’ division, of the Fourteenth Corps, is on the west bank of the Oostanaula approaching a bridge eight miles above Rome. His route will bring him by McGuire’s and Woodland. Be sure to communicate your position to-morrow night, and if you fire signal guns with five minutes’ interval I will understand it as the head of your column.
I am, &c.,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major-General.