I am all ready to attack the moment the weather and roads will permit troops and artillery to move with any thing like life." The weather has a wonderful effect on troops: in action and on the march, rain is favorable; but in the woods, where all is blind and uncertain, it seems almost impossible for an army covering ten miles of front to act in concert during wet and stormy weather.
Still I pressed operations with the utmost earnestness, aiming always to keep our fortified lines in absolute contact with the enemy, while with the surplus force we felt forward, from one flank or the other, for his line of communication and retreat.

On the 22d of June I rode the whole line, and ordered General Thomas in person to advance his extreme right corps (Hooker's); and instructed General Schofield, by letter, to keep his entire army, viz., the Twenty-third Corps, as a strong right flank in close support of Hooker's deployed line.

During this day the sun came out, with some promise of clear weather, and I had got back to my bivouac about dark, when a signal message was received, dated-- KULP HOUSE, 5.30 P.M.
General SHERMAN: We have repulsed two heavy attacks, and feel confident, our only apprehension being from our extreme right flank.

Three entire corps are in front of us.
Major-General HOOKER.
Hooker's corps (the Twentieth) belonged to Thomas's army; Thomas's headquarters were two miles nearer to Hooker than mine; and Hooker, being an old army officer, knew that he should have reported this fact to Thomas and not to me; I was, moreover, specially disturbed by the assertion in his report that he was uneasy about his right flank, when Schofield had been specially ordered to protect that.
I first inquired of my adjutant, Dayton, if he were certain that General Schofield had received his orders, and he answered that the envelope in which he had sent them was receipted by General Schofield himself.

I knew, therefore, that General Schofield must be near by, in close support of Hooker's right flank.