[28] by General Alexander P. Stewart's infantry and lost his captured Confederates, and reported from Turner's Ferry his own loss as 600.
Stoneman, for some unaccountable reason, did not carry out Sherman's instructions at all. Coming from Decatur, he did not join McCook near Jonesboro. Instead of that, he passed off behind the Ocmulgee and went down on the eastern bank. A Confederate dispatch from Macon gave the result of his raid:
Stoneman, after having his force routed yesterday, surrendered with 500 men; the rest of his men are scattered and flying toward Eatonton. Many have been already killed or captured.
Sherman, after this sad experiment, declared that our cavalry “could not or would not make a sufficient lodgment on the railroad below Atlanta, and that nothing would suffice but for us to reach it with the main body.”
After the discomfiture and return of Ed. McCook and the other commanders, Sherman, with marvelous quickness, had our cavalry reorganized and resupplied. He now formed it into three divisions, under Garrard, McCook, and Kilpatrick. The latter, with his optimistic nature and fearless enterprise, had come back to us after the healing of his Resaca wound.
Hood then tried Sherman's cavalry plan on a larger scale. Forrest and Wheeler, with abundant horses, were sent against our long line of supply between Atlanta and Nashville; Forrest above and Wheeler below Chattanooga with hope of drawing Sherman away from Atlanta, so that Hood could fall on his rear with his main army. But these efforts of the Confederate cavalry were as effectually thwarted by Sherman as Sherman's cavalry had been by Hood..