So that, everything considered, it was about as well that we did not get our forces on the bluff's of Walnut Hill." The above statement was sent to General Sherman in a letter dated "Chicago, February 5,1876," and signed "John H.Hammond." Hammond was General Sherman's assistant adjutant-general at the Chickasaw Bayou.
J.E.TOURTELOTTE, Colonel and Aide-de-Camp.
On 29th December, 1862, at Chickasaw Bayou, I was in command of the Thirty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, First Brigade, First Division, Fifteenth Army Corps (Blair's brigade).

Colonel Wyman, of the Thirteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, having been killed, I was the senior colonel of the brigade.

General Blair rode up to where my regiment lay, and said to me: "We are to make a charge here; we will charge in two lines; your regiment will be in the first line, and the Twenty-ninth (Cavender's) will support you.

Form here in the timber, and move out across the bayou on a double-quick, and go right on to the top of the heights in your front." He then told me to await a signal.
I then attempted to make a reconnaissance of the ground over which we would have to charge, and rode out to the open ground in my front, and saw that there was water and soft mud in the bayou, and was fired upon by the sharp-shooters of the enemy, and turned and went back into the woods where my command lay.

Soon after that General Blair came near me, and I told him there was water and mud in the bayou, and I doubted if we could get across.