[Inclosure Numbers 4. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

Tuscumbia, November 4, 1864.

Colonel GEORGE W. BRENT, Assistant Adjutant-General:

COLONEL: I have just received your letter of this morning inclosing a copy of your telegram of yesterday to Major-General Forrest. It is not possible for me to furnish any plan of my operations for the future, as so much must depend upon the movements of the enemy. The matter has been fully discussed between General Beauregard and myself. Inclosed please find a copy of a telegram* sent to the War Department this morning.

Very respectfully,

J. B. HOOD,

General.

Numbers 107. Report of General John B. Hood,* C. S. Army, commanding Army of Tennessee.

RICHMOND, VA., February 15, 1864.

GENERAL: + A serious question was now presented to me. The enemy would not certainly long remain idle. He had it in his power to continue his march to the south and force me to fall back on Alabama for subsistence. I could not hope to hold my position. The country, being a plain, had not natural strength, nor was there any advantageous position upon which I could retire; besides, the morale of the army, greatly improved during the operations around Atlanta, had again become impaired in consequence of the recurrence of retreat, and the army itself decreasing in strength day by day. Something was absolutely demanded, and I rightly judged hat an advance, at all promising success, would go far to restore its fighting spirit. Thus I determined, on consultation with the corps commanders, to turn the enemy's right flank and attempt to destroy his communications and force him to retire from Atlanta. The operations of the cavalry under Wheeler, in Georgia, and under Forrest, in Tennessee, proved to me conclusively and beyond a doubt that all the cavalry in the service could not permanently interrupt the railroad communications in the enemy's rear sufficiently to cause him to abandon his position. To accomplish anything, therefore, it became necessary for me to move with my whole force. Causing the iron to be removed from the several railroads out of Atlanta for distances of forty miles, and directing railroad stock to be restored to the WEST Point railroad, the movement to the left toward that road began on the 18th of September. Arriving at that road the army took position with the left touching the Chattahoochee River and covering that road, where it remained several days to allow the accumulation of supplies at Blue Mountain and a sufficiency with which to continue the movement. On the 29th of September it left its bivouac, near Palmetto, Ga., with Jackson's cavalry in front, Brigadier-General Iverson with his command being left in observation of the enemy in and around Atlanta, and moving first on the prolongation of its left flank to the westward it crossed the Chattahoochee River the same day on a pontoon bridge at Pumpkin Town and Phillips' Ferry, while our supplies, which we brought

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*Not found as an inclosure, but see Hood to Secretary of War, November 4, Part III.

+For portion of report (here omitted) relating to the Atlanta campaign, see Vol. XXXVIII, Part III, p. 628.

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51 R R-VOL XXXIX, PT I