children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet.  In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve.  Now that war comes home to you; you feel very different.  You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.  But these comparisons are idle.  I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing.  Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.  Yours in haste,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, September 14, 1864.

General J. B. HOOD, commanding Army of the Tennessee, Confederate
Army.

GENERAL:  Yours of September 12th is received, and has been carefully perused.  I agree with you that this discussion by two soldiers is out of place, and profitless; but you must admit that you began the controversy by characterizing an official act of mine in unfair and improper terms.  I reiterate my former answer, and to the only new matter contained in your rejoinder add:  We have no “negro allies” in this army; not a single negro soldier left Chattanooga with this army, or is with it now.  There are a few guarding Chattanooga, which General Steedman sent at one time to drive Wheeler out of Dalton.

I was not bound by the laws of war to give notice of the shelling of Atlanta, a “fortified town, with magazines, arsenals, founderies, and public stores;” you were bound to take notice.  See the books.

This is the conclusion of our correspondence, which I did not begin, and terminate with satisfaction.  I am, with respect, your obedient servant,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, September 28, 1864,

Major-General SHERMAN, Atlanta, Georgia.