Alfred Roman, The military operations of General Beauregard in the war between the states, 1861 to 1865

[306] portion of the State of Alabama, and would have made nearly certain the capture of Montgomery, Selma, and Mobile, without insuring the defeat of Sherman.

5th. In October last, when passing through Georgia to assume command of the Military Division of the West, I was informed by Governor Brown that he could probably raise, in case of necessity, about six thousand men, which, I supposed, might be doubled in a levy en masse.

General Cobb informed me at the same time that at Augusta, Macon, and Columbus He had about six thousand five hundred local troops, and that he hoped shortly to have collected at his reserve and convalescent camps, near Macon, two thousand five hundred more. Of these nine thousand men he supposed about one-half, or five thousand, could be made available as movable troops for an emergency.

To oppose the advance of the enemy from Atlanta the State of Georgia would thus have probably seventeen thousand men, to which number must be added the thirteen brigades of Wheeler's cavalry, amounting to about seven thousand men. The troops which could have been collected from Savannah, South Carolina, and North Carolina, before Sherman's forces could reach the Atlantic coast, would have amounted, it was supposed, to about five thousand men.

Thus, it was a reasonable supposition that about twenty-nine or thirty thousand men could be collected in time to defend the State of Georgia, and insure the destruction of Sherman's army, estimated by me at about thirty-six thousand effectives of all arms, their cavalry, about four thousand strong, being included in this estimate.

Under these circumstances, after consultation with General Hood, I concluded to allow him to prosecute with vigor his campaign into Tennessee and Kentucky, hoping that by defeating Thomas's army and such other forces as might hastily be sent against him he would compel Sherman, should he reach the coast of Georgia or South Carolina, to repair at once to the defence of Kentucky, and perhaps Ohio, and thus prevent him from reinforcing Grant. Meanwhile, supplies might be sent to Virginia from Middle and East Tennessee, thus relieving Georgia from the present constant drain upon its limited resources.

I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. T. Beauregard, General.

Thus was the President kept well advised, not only of the main movements of our forces, but of the reasons for them. General Beauregard thought it incumbent upon himself to do so, and, from the moment he assumed command of the almost boundless Department placed under him to the day he was relieved of it, never did he, in a single instance, fail to inform Mr. Davis, or the War Department, of every new phase of the military situation in that part of the country. Mr. Davis therefore gives an erroneous impression in his book, when he leads the reader to believe that he was unaware of General Hood's ‘change of plan,’ and did not oppose it, because when notified of the same ‘it was too late to ’