The Atlanta (Georgia) Campaign: May 1 - September 8, 1864., Part I: General Report.
Maj. George B. Davis, Mr. Leslie J. Perry, Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley, Ed.

[307] many dead in our hands; how many I have not now the means of exactly giving. Compared with the fury of the enemy's charges, his superior numbers, and his great losses, my own casualties were remarkably small, the total loss in the brigade being 3 killed and 31 wounded. The works were strengthened during the day of the 21st, and on the morning of the 22d our skirmishers entered the enemy's works, he having evacuated them during the night. At 9 o'clock the 22d the command moved out toward Atlanta. The enemy's pickets were encountered at a point two miles from the city, and line of battle was formed and works were thrown up by us under a rapid fire of shell from his forts and intrenchments, at short range, which, however, did but little damage. My brigade occupied the same general position which was first assigned it on the 22d until the 26th, when it was withdrawn from the front and bivouacked about 600 yards to the rear, where it remained until near sundown of August 1, when it was ordered by you to move to the extreme left of our lines to a point near the Howard house and relieve a part of the Twenty-third Army Corps, which movement was accomplished early in the evening. The brigade remained in the position sotaken, skirmishing with and watching the enemy, without any unusual action until the 4th of August, when I was relieved from the command of it and assigned to the command of the First Division of this corps, Col. E. Opdycke, of the One hundred and twenty-fifth Ohio Infantry, taking my place in the brigade.

The total loss of the brigade while under my command, from the 22d day of May until the 4th day of August, was 71 killed, 341 wounded, 9 missing, and 4 captured; total loss, 424.

All of the regiments in the brigade were small, their aggregate effective strength averaging about 175 each, and the command was many times very little larger than a full regiment.

Throughout the campaign, and in every battle, the officers and men in my brigade, without any exception, have faithfully and cheerfully performed all their duties, and there is no command in the U. S. Army composed of better men than those who make up the First Brigade, of the Second Division, Fourth Army Corps.

Many of the bravest and best have fallen a sacrifice to their country's cause. It is impossible for me in this report to mention all the deserving by name, but the memory of such men as Col. Silas Miller, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois, who was mortally wounded while in charge of my skirmish line on the 27th of June, at Kenesaw, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Chandler, of the Eighty-eighth Illinois, who was killed while leading his regiment in the charge of that day, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Kerr, Seventy-fourth Illinois Infantry, who was mortally wounded and captured on the parapets of the enemy's works in the same action, will never fade in the hearts of a people who appreciate the noble and the brave and the good.

Col. W. W. Barrett, of the Forty-fourth Illinois Infantry, is entitled to special mention for his coolness and bravery, and I commend him to your favorable consideration.

I also desire to speak in the highest terms of Lieutenant Scovill. of Goodspeed's (Ohio) battery, and of the brave men under him for their gallant conduct on the 20th of July. Never before did guns more terribly punish an enemy than did those under his command that day at Peach Tree Creek.

Liuetenant Turnbull, acting assistant inspector-general, and Lieutenant Jackson, aide-de-camp, both of my staff, were wounded at