ccupy the forts.

Hood is now on the West Point road, twenty-four miles south of
this, and draws his supplies by that road. Jefferson Davis is
there to-day, and superhuman efforts will be made to break my road.

Forrest is now lieutenant-general, and commands all the enemy's
cavalry.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

General Grant first thought I was in error in supposing that Jeff.
Davis was at Macon and Palmetto, but on the 27th I received a
printed copy of his speech made at Macon on the 22d, which was so
significant that I ordered it to be telegraphed entire 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