and was thrown with him a great deal. When not on duty, I spent most of my time about his headquarters, and repeatedly heard him and the officers of his staff discuss the operations of the army around Atlanta, after the events to which such conversations related had transpired.
When General Hardee left the army, at Palmetto station, in the last of September in the year 1864, the separation between him and the officers and soldiers of his old corps was affecting and touching in the extreme. No one seemed to feel it more than General Cleburne. I often heard him speak of it afterwards in terms showing his affection for General Hardee, his high appreciation of General Hardee as a commander, and his keen regret that General Hardee had not continued in command of that corps.
Now, as to General Cleburne, he was one of the most loyal men to his friends I have ever known, and I know that he and General Hardee were devoted friends. A more truthful, candid and utterly fearless man than General Cleburne I have never known, and he was as pure as a woman. He was a man of rare intelligence, but excessively guarded in speech. He was open to his friends, and had no dissimulation about him; and knowing him as I do, and knowing also his relations with General Hardee, I cannot doubt that if he had the conversation with General Hood, as it is reported on pages 185 and 186 of General Hood's book, he would promptly have informed General Hardee of it, and it would have resulted in some immediate and satisfactory explanation.
My acquaintance with General Hood commenced only after his transfer to the Army of Tennessee, and though never intimate was of a friendly character. I have always had a very high opinion of him as a soldier and a man. I cannot believe that he would make any statement, and especially in the solemn manner that he has done this in his book, without believing it to be perfectly true, and at the same time I am satisfied that he is honestly mistaken in his understanding, inferences and application of the language he has attributed to General Cleburne, and that it is a mistake which is cruelly unjust to General Cleburne and to General Hardee. At the time these events were occurring, as subsequent developments have shown, Generals Hood and Hardee, if not unfriendly, occupied relations to each other which were not cordial. However well intended they may have been, and brilliant in their execution, the efforts of General Hood for the relief of Atlanta had not been attended with the desired success; and laboring under the great responsibility that he did at the time, and sensitive from these causes, he was in a condition to misunderstand and misconstrue the faithful efforts of a subordinate commander, who stood in the attitude that General Hardee did to him, upon the color of appearances which had no foundation in fact. Every intelligent mind knows how utterly worthless verbal admissions, as they are called, of a party are, under such circumstances, to say nothing of adding a still weaker feature, that of hearsay evidence concerning imputed
