be opposed
to any reduction of his force, but I go for concentrating against
Lee. If we can whip him now, the rebellion will be virtually ended.

"My corps is small, it is true, but it is 'powerful willing,' and
can help some anyhow.

"Please present my kindest remembrances to my old comrades, and
favor me with an early reply. Yours very truly,

"J. M. Schofield, Major-General.
"Major-General Sherman, Com'd'g, etc., Savannah, Ga."

On my passage through Washington in January, 1865, Mr. Stanton,
the Secretary of War, confirmed the view I had taken of the situation,
and gave reasons for it before unknown to me, by telling me it was
regarded by the administration as an absolute financial necessity
that the war be ended in the campaign then about to begin. It is,
perhaps, not strange that General Thomas had not thought of this;
but it does seem remarkable that he had proposed to let a broken
and dispirited enemy have several months in which to recuperate
before annoying him any further.

The expectation and instructions of General Grant and General
Sherman were that General Thomas should, as soon as he was ready
to take the offensive, pursue Hood into the Gulf States. General
Thomas appears to have forgotten that part of his instructions.
As soon as he had driven Hood across the river, he proposed to go
into winter quarters, and "hold the line of the Tennessee" till
some time the next spring. If General Sherman had confided to
General Thomas, as he did to General Grant, his ulterior purpose
to march from Savannah toward Richmond, for which reason he wanted
Hood kept out of his way, Thomas would have perceived the necessity
of pressing the pursuit of Hood into the Gulf States. But if Thomas
supposed, as he might naturally have done, that Sherman had only
shifted his base with a view to further operations in Georgia and
the Gulf States, under the plan of the last autumn, with which
Thomas was perfectly familiar, he may well have seen no necessity
for his pressing the pursuit beyond the Tennessee River in
midwinter.

Some of our military operations in the Civil War remind me of the
spirit of "fair play" shown by our old doctors in the West in the
days of malarial fever. When the poison had fully developed its
power, and threatened the destruction of its victim, the good doctor
would come in and attack the enemy with heroic doses of quinine.
In a few days medical science would prevail. Then the fair-minded