"In reviewing the facts, I must do justice to my command for the patience, cheerfulness, and courage which officers and men have displayed throughout, in battle, on the march, and in camp. For long periods, without regular rations or supplies of any kind, they have marched through and over rocks, sometimes barefooted, without a murmur, without a moment's rest. After a march of over 400 miles, without stop for three successive nights, we crossed the Tennessee, fought our part of the battle of Chattanooga, pursued the enemy out of Tennessee, and then turned more than 100 miles north, and compelled Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville, which gave so much anxiety to the whole country. "It is hard to realize the importance of these events without recalling the memory of the general feeling which pervaded all minds at Chattanooga prior to our arrival. I cannot speak of the Fifteenth Army Corps without a seeming vanity, but as I am no longer its commander, I assert that there is no better body of soldiers in America than it, or who have done more or better service. I wish all to feel a just pride in its real honors. To General Howard and his command, to General Jefferson C. Davis and his, I am more than usually indebted for the intelligence of commanders and fidelity of command. The brigade of Colonel Bushbeck, belonging to the Eleventh Corps, which was the first to come out of Chattanooga to my flank, fought at the Tunnel Hill in connection with General Ewing's Division, and displayed a courage almost amounting to rashness, following the enemy almost to the tunnel gorge, it lost many valuable lives, prominent among them Lieutenant-Colonel Taft, spoken of as a most gallant soldier. In General Howard throughout I found a polished and Christian gentleman, exhibiting the highest and most chivalrous traits of the soldier. "General Davis handled his division with artistic skill, more especially at the moment we encountered the enemy's rear guard near Graysville, at nightfall. I must award to this division the credit of the best order during our marches through East Tennessee, when long marches and the necessity of foraging to the right and left gave some reasons for disordered ranks. "I must say that it is but justice that colonels of regiments who have so long and so well commanded brigades, as in the following cases, should be commissioned to the grade which they have filled with so much usefulness and credit to the public service, namely, Colonels J. R. Cockerell, Seventieth Ohio Volunteers; J. M. Loomis, Twenty-sixth Illinois; C. E. Wolcott, Forty-sixth Ohio; J. A. Williamson, Fourth, Iowa; G. B. Raum, Fifty-sixth Illinois; J. J. Alexander, Fifty-ninth Indiana."