Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

‘ [62] forced to follow. I hold Atlanta with the Twentieth corps, and have strong detachments along my line. This reduces my active force to a comparatively small army. We cannot remain here on the defensive. With the twenty-five thousand men and the bold cavalry he has, he can constantly break my roads. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city, send back all my wounded and worthless, and with my effective army, move through Georgia, smashing things, to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of my being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive; instead of guessing at what he means to do, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war is full twenty-five per cent. I can make Savannah, Charleston, or the mouth of the Chattahoochee. Answer quick, as I know we shall not have the telegraph long.’

Grant answered the same night at 11.30 P. M.: ‘Your despatch of to-day received. If you are satisfied the trip to the sea-coast can be made, holding the line of the Tennessee firmly, you may make it, destroying all the railroad south of Dalton or Chattanooga, as you think best.’

The only question on which they had for a few hours differed was whether it was not better to fight Hood before the march was made. Sherman declared that Hood would follow him; Grant was certain that the rebel army would go north. Sherman first suggested the destruction of the railroad, but to this Grant never objected, although it left the national army at the start a hundred and