as Grant suggested, to destroy everything there, and thus negative
Mr. Davis's promise of protection, while he (Sherman) pursued
relentlessly the strictly military plan Grant had prescribed for
him to break up Hood's army or capture it, which Sherman had yet
failed to accomplish.

Manifestly some other motive besides the motives stated in Sherman's
telegraphic despatches must have decided him to carry out his plan
to make the march to the sea.

The boastful assurance and threat of the Confederate commander-in-
chief,( 7) referred to by Sherman, gave at least some reason for
Sherman's defiant response by himself marching through Georgia
instead of sending a subordinate; and the partial execution of that
threat by Forrest's cavalry, referred to in Sherman's despatch of
November 1 to Grant, gave a strong reason for Sherman's eager
determination to march at once, without waiting for anything but
his own preparations. In his article, "The Grand Strategy of the
Last Year of the War,"( 8) Sherman reveals one of the reasons for
his haste in starting on his march. "How free and glorious I felt,"
he says, "when the magic telegraph was cut, which prevented the
possibility of orders of any kind from the rear coming to delay or
hinder us!" A letter written by Sherman to Grant, November 6, on
the eve of his start for the sea, also gave reasons, other than
military, for his famous march. In Sherman's "Memoirs" no quotation
is made from this letter,( 9) and it is referred to very briefly
without giving any suggestion of its important contents.

General Sherman thus stated his reasons for writing that letter:
"I have heretofore telegraphed and written you pretty fully, but
I still have some thoughts in my busy brain that should be confided
to you as a key to future developments."

DID IT INVOLVE WAR OR STATESMANSHIP?

Then Sherman explained, with the art of which he was master, clearly,
logically, and convincingly, the reasons for the operations of his
army from the fall of Atlanta down to the time of his writing, by
which he had completely defeated his adversary's designs, closing
with the following language:

"Now, as to the second branch of my proposition, I admit that the
first object should be the destruction of that army; and if Beauregard
moves his infantry and artillery up into that pocket about Jackson
and Paris, I will feel strongly tempted to move Thomas directly
against hi