| Chattanooga |
| March 17, 1863 |
| |
| Brigadier-General Jackson |
| Commanding, &c. |
| Atlanta |
| |
| General, |
| I regret that a blunder of the operator
at Montgomery
gave you useless trouble. My dispatch was written on Saturday
evening, and so dated; it must have been transmitted on the
following morning without the corresponding change in the expression
of my time of arrival at Atlanta. The train which left Montgomery
{on the Montgomery & West Point RR}
on Sunday morning ran off the track, however, and was in that way
delayed twelve hours, so that you could not have found me, even had
the telegraph operator made no mistake. |
| ***** |
| J. E. Johnston |
| General |
|