over one steamer, at my request, to study the relation of the parts of this coast, and will explain things clearly. I don't want to assume the control of matters here further than to give uniformity of action through it was well to place the Department of the South subject to my command. This (Monday) is the day for Howard to put his Right Wing at Pocotaligo and fortify. He was across Port Royal with the Seventeenth Corps and out some four miles when I last heard. The Fifteenth Corps is now passing from Thunderbolt to Port Royal. The Twentieth Corps is across the Union Causeway, and Davis and Kilpatrick will move up to Sister's Ferry, and I will get all my army in hand on a line from Sister's Ferry to Pocotaligo. I have not heard from you since Colonel Ewing went up, but suppose the route indicated will be the best. I now take it. Some, if not all, of Hood's army will be worked over this way, and Thomas should be pressed down to Selma. If Thomas would prefer to watch Tennessee, order him to send a small force from Chattanooga down toward Rome, and detach Schofield, with 35,000 men, including Wilson, to Selma, via Tuscaloosa, and to return via Talladega and Rome. That circuit would be easy to make, and would tear out the heart of Alabama and prevent the farmers planting corn, because all rails would be burned, horses and mules taken, and corn eaten up. I would risk that march with just enough wagons to carry the command across Sand Mountain. I think the farmers of Georgia are organizing against Jeff. Davis, but don't build any castles on that hope.

Truly, yours,

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, Savannah, January 16, 1865.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

City Point:

GENERAL: Since my letter of this morning I have official reports from General Howard, commanding Right Wing. He crossed from Beaufort Island on Saturday, the 14th, by Port Royal Ferry to the mainland with the Seventeenth Corps, General Blair, and marched for Pocotaligo. They encountered the enemy near Garden's Corners, but soon outflanked him, and followed, dislodging him from position to position, till he took refuge in a strong fort at Pocotaligo. This is described as a well-constructed, inclosed work, pierced for twenty-four guns, and the approaches covered by the peculiar salt marsh points that guard this coast. Night overtook the command there, and Sunday morning the enemy was gone. Howard expresses satisfaction thereat, as it was Sunday, and it saved him an assault which might have cost him some valuable lives. As it was, he lost Lieutenant Chandler, of General Leggett's staff, killed, and Captain Kellogg, of General Giles A. Smith's staff, wounded. He writes that 8 or 10 will cover his loss. He reports guns captured at Garden's Corners. We are therefore now in possession of good high ground on the railroad at Pocotaligo, with a good road back twenty-five miles to Beaufort. I will order Howard to forage toward Charleston, but proceed to get my army and trains across, and can start north the moment I can get my wagons loaded. The weather at sea has been so stormy that vessels are behind, and it has been touch and go to get daily food. I have ordered Slocum to push a division up to Hardeeville and Purysburg,