tion of General Grant, after the lapse of so long a
time, and when he was suffering almost beyond endurance from a
fatal disease, may possibly, it seems to me, not express the views
he entertained in October, 1864, quite so fully or accurately as
his despatch of October 11, 1864, 11 A. M., to General Sherman,
heretofore quoted.

That despatch was a literal prediction of what Hood actually did.
It was dictated by a clear military foresight, whether of Grant or
Rawlins. How far world-wide approval of Sherman's plans after
their brilliant success may have obscured the past can only be
conjectured. As distinctly stated by Grant himself soon afterward,
he clearly saw that somebody ought to be criticized; but, in view
of the results, he decided to let it pass.

However all this may be, even my respect for the opinions of the
greatest of Union soldiers cannot alter the conclusion I have
reached after many years of study and mature consideration. I can
only say that the opinion ascribed to General Rawlins, as opposed
to General Grant's, was in my judgment the better of the two; and
that General Rawlins, though he had not the advantage of an early
military education, was a man of great natural ability, and had
learned much from more than three years' experience in war, after
which the differences in military judgment which had existed at
the beginning must have very largely, if not entirely, disappeared.
General Rawlins was my immediate successor in the War Department,
and would, I doubt not, have made a great reputation there if his
life had been prolonged.

I believe Grant's own sound military judgment dictated his first
answer to Sherman, dissenting from the proposition to begin the
march to the sea before Hood's army was disposed of, or that result
assured. His great confidence in the genius of his brilliant
subordinate, and in Sherman's judgment that he had given Thomas
ample means to take care of Hood, no matter what that bold and
reckless adversary might do, dictated Grant's final assent to
Sherman's project. Their correspondence shows this so clearly and
fully that there would seem to be no need of my making any special
reference to it. I do so only because of the statement in General
Grant's "Memoirs." Very possibly General Grant may have meant, in
his "Memoirs," only that he approved the general project, under
the condition that sufficient force would be left "to take care of
Hood and destroy him," not cari