Soon after our reaching Atlanta, General Hood had sent in by a flag of truce a proposition, offering a general exchange of prisoners, saying that he was authorized to make such an exchange by the Richmond authorities, out of the vast number of our men then held captive at Andersonville, the same whom General Stoneman had hoped to rescue at the time of his raid.  Some of these prisoners had already escaped and got in, had described the pitiable condition of the remainder, and, although I felt a sympathy for their hardships and sufferings as deeply as any man could, yet as nearly all the prisoners who had been captured by us during the campaign had been sent, as fast as taken, to the usual depots North, they were then beyond my control.  There were still about two thousand, mostly captured at Jonesboro, who had been sent back by cars, but had not passed Chattanooga.  These I ordered back, and offered General Hood to exchange them for Stoneman, Buell, and such of my own army as would make up the equivalent; but I would not exchange for his prisoners generally, because I knew these would have to be sent to their own regiments, away from my army, whereas all we could give him could at once be put to duty in his immediate army.  Quite an angry correspondence grew up between us, which was published at the time in the newspapers, but it is not to be found in any book of which I have present knowledge, and therefore is given here, as illustrative of the events referred to, and of the feelings of the actors in the game of war at that particular crisis, together with certain other original letters of Generals Grant and Halleck, never hitherto published.

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, September 12, 1864

Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding Military Division of the Mississippi

General:  I send Lieutenant-Colonel Horace Porter, of my staff, with this.  Colonel Porter will explain to you the exact condition of affairs here, better than I can do in the limits of a letter.  Although I feel myself strong enough now for offensive operations, I am holding on quietly, to get advantage of recruits and convalescents, who are coming forward very rapidly.  My lines are necessarily very long, extending from Deep Bottom, north of the James, across the peninsula formed by the Appomattox and the James, and south of the Appomattox to the Weldon road.  This line is very strongly fortified, and can be held with comparatively few men; but, from its great length, necessarily takes many in the aggregate.  I propose, when I do move, to extend my left so as to control what is known as the Southside, or Lynchburg & Petersburg road; then, if possible, to keep the Danville road out.  At the same time this move is made, I want to send a force of from six to ten thousand men against Wilmington.  The way I propose to do this is to land the men north of Fort Fisher,