provoked, accused them of having been in conference, with being
beaten before battle, and added that he was unwilling to engage in
a critical battle with an army so superior to his own in numbers,
with two of his three corps commanders dissatisfied with the ground
and positions assigned them. He then and there made up his mind to
retreat still farther south, to put the Etowah River and the
Allatoona range between us; and he at once gave orders to resume
the retrograde movement.

This was my recollection of the substance of the conversation, of
which I made no note at the time; but, at a meeting of the Society
of the Army of the Cumberland some years after, at Cleveland, Ohio,
about 1868, in a short after-dinner speech, I related this
conversation, and it got into print. Subsequently, in the spring
of 1870, when I was at New Orleans, on route for Texas, General
Hood called to see me at the St. Charles Hotel, explained that he
had seen my speech reprinted in the newspapers and gave me his
version of the same event, describing the halt at Cassville, the
general orders for battle on that ground, and the meeting at supper
with Generals Johnston and Polk, when the chances of the battle to
be fought the next day were freely and fully discussed; and he
stated that he had argued against fighting the battle purely on the
defensive, but had asked General Johnston to permit him with his
own corps and part of Polk's to quit their lines, and to march
rapidly to attack and overwhelm Schofield, who was known to be
separated from Thomas by an interval of nearly five miles, claiming
that he could have defeated Schofield, and got back to his position
in time to meet General Thomas's attack in front. He also stated
that he had then contended with Johnston for the "offensive-
defensive" game, instead of the "pure defensive," as proposed by