of having Sherman march from Savannah to Richmond, or even to North
Carolina. The season was bad, the roads impassable for anything except
such an army as he had, and I should not have thought of ordering such a
move. I had, therefore, made preparations to collect transports to
carry Sherman and his army around to the James River by water, and so
informed him. On receiving this letter he went to work immediately to
prepare for the move, but seeing that it would require a long time to
collect the transports, he suggested the idea then of marching up north
through the Carolinas. I was only too happy to approve this; for if
successful, it promised every advantage. His march through Georgia had
thoroughly destroyed all lines of transportation in that State, and had
completely cut the enemy off from all sources of supply to the west of
it. If North and South Carolina were rendered helpless so far as
capacity for feeding Lee's army was concerned, the Confederate garrison
at Richmond would be reduced in territory, from which to draw supplies,
to very narrow limits in the State of Virginia; and, although that
section of the country was fertile, it was already well exhausted of
both forage and food. I approved Sherman's suggestion therefore at
once.

The work of preparation was tedious, because supplies, to load the
wagons for the march, had to be brought from a long distance. Sherman
would now have to march through a country furnishing fewer provisions
than that he had previously been operating in during his march to the
sea. Besides, he was confronting, or marching toward, a force of the
enemy vastly superior to any his troops had encountered on their
previous march; and the territory through which he had to pass had now
become of such vast importance to the very existence of the Confederate
army, that the most desperate efforts were to be expected in order to
save it.