new road across the swamp, which we had to corduroy from the river through the entire swamp. November 29, during the night we built two small trestle bridges, sixty-five feet in length, across Big Creek, three miles south of Louisville. From this on we had no more pontoon bridges to lay, but we traveled through a country that was very leave and swampy, and I had 100 of my men daily detailed, under charge of Captain William E. Chappell, of this regiment, to march in advance as pioneers to corduroy swamps and repair bridges, and clear out the timber which had been felled in the roads at every swamp by the enemy. There were a good many small bridges built, not, however, worth reporting.

On the 10th of December we reached a point five miles from Savannah, and on the 13th I received orders to report to Colonel Buell, then commanding the other section of the train.

Recapitulation: Whole number of pontoon-boats put down, 18, making 410 feet bridges; balk and chess used to build bridges on trestles, 360 feet; trestle bridges built, 185 feet; total, 955 feet.

Respectfully submitted.

JOSEPH MOORE,

Lieutenant-Colonel Fifty-eighth Indiana Volunteers,

Commanding Section Pontoon Train, Left Wing, Army of Georgia.

Colonel GEORGE P. BUELL,

Commanding Pontoon Train.

Numbers 52. Report of Bvt. Major General Jefferson C. Davis, U. S. Army, commanding Fourteenth Army Corps. HEADQUARTERS FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Savannah, Ga., December 31, 1864.

COLONEL: *

On the morning of the 15th [November] the corps reached Atlanta and bivouacked in the suburbs of the city. The remainder of the day and night was spent in issuing clothing to the men, filling up empty wagons with provisions, equalizing and assigning trains to the different commands with a view to rapid marching. On the morning of the 16th the head of the column marched on the road leading to Covington, through Decatur, and made an average march of fifteen miles. On the 17th, moving in the same order of march and destroying the railroad from Lithonia to Yellow River, the corps went into camp on the west bank of the river and vicinity late in the evening. During the night Colonel Buell, commanding pontoon train, laid two excellent bridges across the river, and early on the morning of the 18th the advance was resumed. Passing through Covington the whole command went into camp during the afternoon on the Ulcofauhachee River. The bridges were repaired across the steam, and the march resumed at daylight on the morning of the 19th, in the direction of Eatonton, by the way of Shady Dale, in the vicinity of which place the whole command encamped for the night.

On the 20th the corps marched for and went into camp near Eatonton factories. The advance of the Twentieth Corps from Madisonville,

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*For portion of report (here omitted) relating to operations in North Carolina and North Alabama, see VOL. XXXIX, Part I, p. 614.

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