om
General Grant, giving in general terms the events up to the 18th,
and I wrote at once through my chief of staff, General Webster, to
General Thomas, complimenting him in the highest terms. His
brilliant victory at Nashville was necessary to mine at Savannah to
make a complete whole, and this fact was perfectly comprehended by
Mr. Lincoln, who recognized it fully in his personal letter of
December 26th, hereinbefore quoted at length, and which is also
claimed at the time, in my Special Field Order No. 6, of January 8,
1865, here given:

(Special Field Order No. 6.)

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
IN THE FIELD, NEAR SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, January 8, 1864.

The general commanding announces to the troops composing the
Military Division of the Mississippi that he has received from the
President of the United States, and from Lieutenant-General Grant,
letters conveying their high sense and appreciation of the campaign
just closed, resulting in the capture of Savannah and the defeat of
Hood's army in Tennessee.

In order that all may understand the importance of events, it is
proper to revert to the situation of affairs in September last. We
held Atlanta, a city of little value to us, but so important to the
enemy that Mr. Davis, the head of the rebellious faction in the
South, visited his army near Palmetto, and commanded it to regain
the place and also to ruin and destroy us, by a series of measures
which he thought would be effectual. That army, by a rapid march,
gained our railroad near Big Shanty, and afterward about Dalton.
We pursued it, but it moved so rapidly that we could not overtake
it, and General Hood led his army successfully far over toward
Mississippi, in hope to decoy us out of Georgia. But we were not
thus to be led away by him, and preferred to lead and control
events ourselves. Generals Thomas and Schofield, commanding the
departments to our rear, returned to their posts and prepared to
decoy General Hood into their meshes, while we came on to complete
the original journey. We quietly and deliberately destroyed
Atlanta, and all the railroads which the enemy had used to carry on
war against us, occupied his State capital, and then captured his
commercial capital, which had been so strongly fortified from the
sea as to defy approach from that quarter. Almost at the moment of
our victorious entry into Savannah came the welcome and expected
news that our comrades in Tennessee h