up a good position on Proctor's Creek. TO this end, Major- General Blair, commanding Seventeenth Army Corps, will cause General Ransom's division to be relieved, and will then in conjunction with Major- General Logan, commanding Fifteenth Corps, occupy the entire line to the new right of the Sixteenth Corps. Captain C. B. Reese, chief engineer, will indicate to General Ransom the position to be occupied by him. These dispositions will be made after dark to- morrow, the 17th instant, and corps commanders will make all necessary arrangements during the day, in order that the movement may be effected with celerity and without noise.

By order of Major General O. O. Howard:

WM. T. CLARK,

Assistant Adjutant- General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
In the Field, near Atlanta, Ga., August 17, 1864.

(Received 6 p. m. 18th)

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Washington, D. C.:

Your dispatch of yesterday is received.* We must have the Alabama River, and, if I remember the bay, the best river channel is on the Tensas side; but, of course, I must trust to Admiral Farragut and General Canby. I have a tight grip on Atlanta, and was on the point of swinging round to the southeast when Wheeler went to my rear with 6,000 cavalry; he has passed into East Tennessee, having damaged us but little. I will avail myself of his absence to reciprocate the compliment,and to- morrow night the Macon road must be broken good. General Kilpatrick will undertake it. Wheeler cannot disturb Knoxville or Loudon. He may hurt some of the minor points, but, on the whole, East Tennessee is a good place for him to break down his horses, and a poor place to steal new ones. All well.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

NEAR ATLANTA, August 17, 1864- 11.30 a. m.

(Received 7 p. m. 18th)

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Washington, D. C.:

The trouble about cotton is the time consumed in loading and unloading. It is all we can do to get supplies up, for I have to make allowance for our road being broken one- third the time. There is very little cotton in North Georgia, abut I will order quartermasters to collect all and send it to Colonel Donaldson at Nashville, where the Treasury Department may have it or buy it of nominal owners.+

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

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*Probably of August 14, 2 p. m., p. 488.

+Sent in reply to the President's inquiry of August 15 (see p. 505), which, as received by General Sherman, was signed H. W. Halleck.

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