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

Thus Grant was busy, directing every portion of his vast command: planning the magnificent combination by which Sherman was sure of support, in case of need, along the march, and when he reached the interior of North Carolina, should find another army of forty thousand men with a secure base on the Atlantic coast, and the supplies which he was certain to require; bringing Schofield in the depth of winter, by steamer and railroad, from the heart of Tennessee to the frozen Potomac, and then dispatching him again on ocean transports to the tempestuous North Carolina coast, where a foothold had just been gained at so much cost; thence again directing him to move rapidly out, capturing Wilmington and building a railroad as he advanced, to be ready to meet the great marcher in the interior: at the same time stripping Thomas of troops, to send east and south, where they could be more effectually employed; adding reinforcements of veterans and recruits to Sherman and Terry; transferring Grover from the Shenandoah to the Savannah, so as to set Foster free; dispatching an expedition to favor Sherman from East Tennessee; inspiring one advance from the north and another from the south, one from the Tennessee and another from the Gulf of Mexico, against the last great arsenals and storehouses left to the rebellion west of the Alleghanies; and himself still firmly holding the largest army of the enemy in his front, and thus alone rendering practicable all his other designs.

But at this juncture he inaugurated still another campaign. Thomas's command was now very much depleted. Stoneman had been ordered to South Carolina, and Grierson, with three thousand cavalry,