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In line of Battle: 4 Miles South of Marietta, Ga. July 4, 1864, My dear friends: I wrote a line on the 2nd instant, telling you that we were ordered to move at night, as soon as it grew dark. We did so - the blackness being so dense as almost to be felt. Groping our way, in silence, through the thick woods whose tangled undergrowth takes to the utmost a man's powers of locomotion by day-time - wading that, which is called a creek by courtesy, but which was a dismal swamp in reality all of us waist high and the most diminutive (myself included) breast or neck high, in a composite mixture too solid for water and too fluid for mud, but which combined the discomforts of both, we reached at Midnight our position - the most advanced portion of the Federal line. It was evidently anticipated that the Enemy would abandon his works during the night, for we we ordered to push forward our skirmishers at earliest gray of dawn: so about 3:50 a.m. I went out with the boys and sure enough the Rebels had left, except one poor fellow who, being sick the previous night, remained to be captured by us. As soon as reports were received by General Sherman from other portions of the line, making it certain that Johnston had withdrawn his army behind Marietta, the whole vast force resumed the march, skirmishing of course