re as far as
Louisville, to be sent thence by mail to Washington, and on the
same day received this dispatch:

WASHINGTON, D. C., September 27, 1864-9 a.m.
Major-General SHERMAN, Atlanta:
You say Jeff Davis is on a visit to General Hood. I judge that
Brown and Stephens are the objects of his visit.
A. LINCOLN, President of the United States.

To which I replied:

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, September 28, 1864.

President LINCOLN, Washington, D. C.:

I have positive knowledge that Mr. Davis made a speech at Macon, on
the 22d, which I mailed to General Halleck yesterday. It was
bitter against General Jos. Johnston and Governor Brown. The
militia are on furlough. Brown is at Milledgeville, trying to get
a Legislature to meet next month, but he is afraid to act unless in
concert with other Governors, Judge Wright, of Rome, has been here,
and Messrs. Hill and Nelson, former members of Congress, are here
now, and will go to meet Wright at Rome, and then go back to
Madison and Milledgeville.

Great efforts are being made to reenforce Hood's army, and to break
up my railroads, and I should have at once a good reserve force at
Nashville. It would have a bad effect, if I were forced to send
back any considerable part of my army to guard roads, so as to
weaken me to an extent that I could not act offensively if the
occasion calls for it.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

All this time Hood and I were carrying on the foregoing
correspondence relating to the exchange of prisoners, the removal
of the people from Atlanta, and the relief of our prisoners of war
at Andersonville. Notwithstanding the severity of their
imprisonment, some of these men escaped from Andersonville, and got
to me at Atlanta. They described their sad condition: more than
twenty-five thousand prisoners confined in a stockade designed for
only ten thousand; debarred the privilege of gathering wood out of
which to make huts; deprived of sufficient healthy food, and the
little stream that ran through their prison pen poisoned and
polluted by the offal from their cooking and butchering houses
above. On the 22d of September I wrote to General Hood, describing
the condition of our men at Andersonville, purposely refraining
from casting odium on him or his associates for the treatment of
these men, but asking his consent for me to procure from our
generous friends at the North the articles of