On Aug. 31, 1864, after John Bell Hood learned that Federal forces had wrecked the West Point Railroad to the southwest and were threatening the Macon Railroad at Jonesboro, S. D. Lee’s Confederate troops were withdrawn from Atlanta’s defense lines on the evening of the 30th. Lee’s troops, together with Hardee’s, began the march to Jonesboro long after dark. Hardee’s three divisions and Anderson’s division of Lee’s army corps left from East Point and Rough and Ready on the main road, while Lee’s other two divisions, Stevenson’s and Clayton’s, went by Mount Zion Church in Fulton County and Rough and Ready, then followed the railroad by way of Morrow’s Station, arriving at Jonesboro in the immediate rear of Hardee’s command in the late forenoon.