Headquarters armies of the united states
city point, Virginia, December 3, 1864.

Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding Armies near Savannah,
Georgia.

General:  The little information gleaned from the Southern press indicating no great obstacle to your progress, I have directed your mails (which had been previously collected in Baltimore by Colonel Markland, special-agent of the Post-Office Department) to be sent as far as the blockading squadron off Savannah, to be forwarded to you as soon as heard from on the coast.

Not liking to rejoice before the victory is assured, I abstain from congratulating you and those under your command, until bottom has been struck.  I have never had a fear, however, for the result.

Since you left Atlanta no very great progress has been made here.  The enemy has been closely watched, though, and prevented from detaching against you.  I think not one man has gone from here, except some twelve or fifteen hundred dismounted cavalry.  Bragg has gone from Wilmington.  I am trying to take advantage of his absence to get possession of that place.  Owing to some preparations Admiral Porter and General Butler are making to blow up Fort Fisher (which, while hoping for the best, I do not believe a particle in), there is a delay in getting this expedition off.  I hope they will be ready to start by the 7th, and that Bragg will not have started back by that time.

In this letter I do not intend to give you any thing like directions for future action, but will state a general idea I have, and will get your views after you have established yourself on the sea-coast.  With your veteran army I hope to get control of the only two through routes from east to west possessed by the enemy before the fall of Atlanta.  The condition will be filled by holding Savannah and Augusta, or by holding any other port to the east of Savannah and Branchville.  If Wilmington falls, a force from there can cooperate with you.

Thomas has got back into the defenses of Nashville, with Hood close upon him.  Decatur has been abandoned, and so have all the roads, except the main one leading to Chattanooga.  Part of this falling back was undoubtedly necessary, and all of it may have been.  It did not look so, however, to me.  In my opinion, Thomas far outnumbers Hood in infantry.  In cavalry Hood has the advantage in morale and numbers.  I hope yet that Hood will be badly crippled, if not destroyed.  The general news you will learn from the papers better than I can give it.

After all becomes quiet, and roads become so bad up here that there is likely to be a week or two when nothing can be done, I will run down the coast to see you.  If you desire it, I will ask Mrs. Sherman to go with me.  Yours truly,

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.

Headquarters of the armies of the united states. 
City point, Virginia, December 6, 1864.