After Confederate forces under Hardee and Lee lost the first day’s battle at Jonesboro on August 31, 1864, Lieutenant General John Bell Hood, inside Atlanta’s fortifications, realized the last railroad supplying the city would be cut and that Atlanta would have to be abandoned. He blew up his ammunition supplies to prevent their capture by U.S. General Sherman and, about 2 a.m. that night, ordered Lieutenant General Stephen D. Lee’s corps at Jonesborough to march toward Atlanta to support the evacuation of the remaining forces, including Lieutenant General A. P. Stewart’s corps and the Georgia Militia. Lee’s corps halted at the Killis Brown farm northeast of the South River. On September 1, 1864, Hardee’s corps was overrun in the second day’s battle at Jonesboro, escaped southward, and reached Cedar Bluff ridge on the McDonough Road between Jonesboro and Lovejoy. That evening, Stewart’s corps marched out of Atlanta at 5 p.m. on the McDonough Road toward McDonough under orders to support Hardee’s corps at Lovejoy against five Union corps. Lee later reported that he had been ordered on the morning of September 1 to move toward Lovejoy’s Station and reached it on September 3. Stewart’s corps arrived at Lovejoy on September 2 and supported Hardee’s entrenched line on the McDonough Road. On September 3 at 9 a.m., U.S. General Schofield informed Major General Sherman that Stewart had already joined Hardee at Lovejoy and that Lee was at McDonough, reporting that the Confederate line had been considerably extended eastward along a high ridge in front of the McDonough Road and behind Walnut Creek; this indicates Lee arrived after Stewart and extended the Confederate right flank. On September 7 at 10:50 p.m., Hood’s chief of staff, F.A. Shoup, instructed Lee to choose a place near his lines to bivouac his corps, park the artillery under the senior officer, and establish police regulations to keep the men present. Lee wrote that the army remained at Lovejoy until September 18, when it began moving toward Palmetto Station on the West Point and Atlanta Railroad, arriving there on September 19. The main Confederate campsites stretched from Nash Farm at Babb's Mill Road westward to the Talmadge property, crossing Pan Handle Road.