e since retrieved his blunders, and I do
not know but the first failure has been as valuable a success for
the country as the capture of Fort Fisher. Butler may not see it
in that light.

Ever since you started on the last campaign, and before, I have
been attempting to get something done in the West, both to
cooperate with you and to take advantage of the enemy's weakness
there--to accomplish results favorable to us. Knowing Thomas to be
slow beyond excuse, I depleted his army to reinforce Canby, so that
he might act from Mobile Bay on the interior. With all I have
said, he has not moved at last advices. Canby was sending a
cavalry force, of about seven thousand, from Vicksburg toward
Selma. I ordered Thomas to send Wilson from Eastport toward the
same point, and to get him off as soon after the 20th of February
as possible. He telegraphed me that he would be off by that date.
He has not yet started, or had not at last advices. I ordered him
to send Stoneman from East Tennessee into Northwest South Carolina,
to be there about the time you would reach Columbia. He would
either have drawn off the enemy's cavalry from you, or would have
succeeded in destroying railroads, supplies, and other material,
which you could not reach. At that time the Richmond papers were
full of the accounts of your movements, and gave daily accounts of
movements in West North Carolina. I supposed all the time it was
Stoneman. You may judge my surprise when I afterward learned that
Stoneman was still in Louisville, Kentucky, and that the troops in
North Carolina were Kirk's forces! In order that Stoneman might
get off without delay, I told Thomas that three thousand men would
be sufficient for him to take. In the mean time I had directed
Sheridan to get his cavalry ready, and, as soon as the snow in the
mountains melted sufficiently, to start for Staunton, and go on and
destroy the Virginia Central Railroad and canal. Time advanced,
until he set the 28th of February for starting. I informed Thomas,
and directed him to change the course of Stoneman toward Lynchburg,
to destroy the road in Virginia up as near to that place as
possible. Not hearing from Thomas, I telegraphed to him about the
12th, to know if Stoneman was yet off. He replied not, but that he
(Thomas) would start that day for Knoxville, to get him off as soon
as possible.

Sheridan has made his raid, and with splendid success, so far as
heard. I am looking for h