General Schofield assembled the corps at the mills and rested for the night. Early on the 19th my division took the advance and marched southward on by-roads till we overtook Hooker's corps and found it in line of battle, its movement being disputed by the enemy's cavalry. Schofield deployed his corps on Hooker's left, my division taking the extreme flank and advancing in line to the south fork of Two Run Creek. Crossing this, we went forward to a position a mile northeast of Cassville, briskly skirmishing with part of Hood's corps. We found that we were opposite the extreme right of the Confederate position, which was a strong one on the hills behind Cassville; but an exchange of artillery shots satisfied us that we to some extent enfiladed their intrenchments. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. ii. p. 680.] The concentration of Thomas's army with Schofield's made a continuous line facing the enemy on the north and west. Night was falling as we took position. Johnston had followed the railroad to Kingston, where he was joined by French's division coming to Polk's corps from Rome, and still stuck to the general line of the railway to Cassville, though this led him by a considerable detour to the east. His manifest policy was to make the largest use of the railroad to move his baggage and supply his troops, for wagon trains were not over-abundant with the Confederates. He naturally reckoned also that Sherman could not go far from the same line, and as the road crossed the Etowah near the gorges of the Allatoona hills, he wished to lead the national commander into that difficult country from the north, instead of taking the more direct wagon-roads from Kingston toward Marietta. Could Sherman have been sure of the route his adversary would take, no doubt he would have concentrated his columns by shortest roads on Cassville, gaining possibly a day thereby. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iv. pp. 242, 266.]