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.

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

GENERAL:  On reflection since sending my letter by the hands of Lieutenant Dunn, I have concluded that the most important operation toward closing out the rebellion will be to close out Lee and his army.

You have now destroyed the roads of the South so that it will probably take them three months without interruption to reestablish a through line from east to west.  In that time I think the job here will be effectually completed.

My idea now is that you establish a base on the sea-coast, fortify and leave in it all your artillery and cavalry, and enough infantry to protect them, and at the same time so threaten the interior that the militia of the South will have to be kept at home.  With the balance of your command come here by water with all dispatch.  Select yourself the officer to leave in command, but you I want in person.  Unless you see objections to this plan which I cannot see, use every vessel going to you for purposes of transportation.