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moving beyond where you are, I plainly see. If it had not been for Price's movement, Canby could have sent twelve thousand more men to Mobile.
From your command on the Mississippi an equal number could have been taken.
With these forces, my idea would have been to divide them, sending one-half to Mobile and the other half to Savannah.
You could then move as proposed in your telegram, so as to threaten Macon and Augusta equally, Whichever one should be abandoned by the enemy you could take and open up a new base of supplies.’ * * * *
General Sherman's letter, in reply to the above, was dated September 20th, and contains these extracts:
Now that Mobile is shut out to the commerce of our enemy, it calls for no further effort on our part, unless the capture of the city can be followed by the occupation of the Alabama River and the railroad to Columbus, Georgia, when that place would be a magnificent auxiliary to my further progress into Georgia. * * * *
If successful, I suppose that Fort Caswell will be occupied, and the fleet at once sent to the Savannah River.
Then the reduction of that city is the next question.
It once in our possession, and the river open to us, I would not hesitate to cross the State of Georgia with sixty thousand men, hauling some stores and depending on the country for the balance.
Where a million of people find subsistence, my army won't starve. * * * *
I will, therefore, give it as my opinion that your army and Canby's should be reenforced to the maximum; that, after you get Wilmington, you should strike for Savannah and its river; that General Canby should hold the Mississippi River, and send a force to take Columbus, Georgia, either by way of the Alabama or Appalachicola River; that I should keep Hood employed, and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston, and start as soon as Wilmington is sealed to commerce, and the city of Savannah is in our possession. * * * *
‘If you will secure Wilmington and the city of Savannah from your center, and let General Canby have command over the Mississippi River and the country west of it, I will send a force to the Alabama and Appalachicola, provided you give me one hundred thousand of the drafted men to fill up my old regiments; and if you will fix a day to be in Savannah I will insure our possession of Macon and a point on the river below Augusta.’ * * *
This last is sufficiently explicit as to the conditions upon which
General Sherman was willing to undertake a march to the sea.
On the 4th of October, while the subject of
Sherman's further movement from
Atlanta was under consideration, and
