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course, you may take it for granted that I have moved via Griffin to Barnesville; that I break up the road between Columbus and Macon good, and then, if I feign on Columbus, will move via Macon and Millen to Savannah; or if I feign on Macon, you may take it for granted I have shot off towards Opelika, Montgomery, and Mobile bay or Pensacola.’
He concluded: ‘I will not attempt to send couriers back, but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well advised. . . I will see that the road is broken completely between the Etowa and the Chattahoochee, and that Atlanta itself is utterly destroyed.’
On the 7th, he said: ‘By the 10th, the election will be over, the troops all paid, and all our surplus property will be back to Chattanooga.
On that day or the following, if affairs should remain as now in Tennessee, I propose to begin the movement.’
Grant replied on the same day, at 10.30 P. M.: ‘Your despatch of this evening received.
I see no present reason for changing your plan; should any arise, you will see it; or if I do, I will inform you. I think everything here favorable now. Great good fortune attend you. I believe you will be eminently successful, and at worst can only make a march less fruitful of results than hoped for.’
This was the last despatch from Grant that Sherman received before the wires were cut.
The election for President was now close at hand, and Grant, like most of the earnest men in the army, was profoundly anxious for the reelection of Lincoln.
His anxiety, however, had
New York Appleton 1885.
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