enemy’s arsenals of Columbia, Cheraw, and Fayetteville, are the principals of the movement.  These points were regarded as inaccessible to us, and now no place in the Confederacy is safe against the army of the West.  Let Lee hold on to Richmond, and we will destroy his country; and then of what use is Richmond.  He must come out and fight us on open ground, and for that we must ever be ready.  Let him stick behind his parapets, and he will perish.

I remember well what you asked me, and think I am on the right road, though a long one.  My army is as united and cheerful as ever, and as full of confidence in itself and its leaders.  It is utterly impossible for me to enumerate what we have done, but I inclose a slip just handed me, which is but partial.  At Columbia and Cheraw we destroyed nearly all the gunpowder and cartridges which the Confederacy had in this part of the country.  This arsenal is in fine order, and has been much enlarged.  I cannot leave a detachment to hold it, therefore shall burn it, blow it up with gunpowder, and then with rams knock down its walls.  I take it for granted the United States will never again trust North Carolina with an arsenal to appropriate at her pleasure.

Hoping that good fortune may still attend my army.  I remain your servant,

W. T. Sherman, Major-General.

Headquarters military division of the Mississippi, in the field,
FAYETTVILLE, north Carolina, Sunday, March. 12, 1885.

Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, commanding United States Army,
City Point, Virginia.

Dear general:  We reached this place yesterday at noon; Hardee, as usual, retreating across the Cape Fear, burning his bridges; but our pontoons will be up to-day, and, with as little delay as possible, I will be after him toward Goldsboro’.

A tug has just come up from Wilmington, and before I get off from here, I hope to get from Wilmington some shoes and stockings, sugar, coffee, and flour.  We are abundantly supplied with all else, having in a measure lived off the country.

The army is in splendid health, condition, and spirits, though we have had foul weather, and roads that would have stopped travel to almost any other body of men I ever heard of.

Our march, was substantially what I designed—­straight on Columbia, feigning on Branchville and Augusta.  We destroyed, in passing, the railroad from the Edisto nearly up to Aiken; again, from Orangeburg to the Congaree; again, from Colombia down to Kingsville on the Wateree, and up toward Charlotte as far as the Chester line; thence we turned east on Cheraw and Fayetteville.  At Colombia we destroyed immense arsenals and railroad establishments, among which wore forty-three cannon.  At Cheraw we found also machinery and material of war sent from Charleston, among which were twenty-five guns and thirty-six hundred barrels of powder; and here we find about twenty guns and a magnificent United States’ arsenal.