HEADQUARTERS,
PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA, March 17, 1865.
HON. JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE,
Sec. of War, Richmond, Va.
SIR: A dispatch from Lieutenant-General Taylor at Meridian
on the 12th inst. states that he had returned that morning from West Point;
that Thomas was reported to be moving with the Fourth Army Corps and about
12,000 cavalry; that General Maury reports enemy, some 30,000 strong, moving
with fleet and by land from Pensacola on Mobile; that about 30,000 bales of
cotton in Mobile will be burned as soon as the city is invested; that he has
provided for these movements as fully as his resources permitted, but that he
had received no aid from Mississippi or Alabama, yet hoped to embarrass the
enemy in his efforts to take those States. If the estimate of the enemy's
strength is correct, I see little prospect of preserving Mobile, and had
previously informed him that he could not rely upon the return of the Army of
Tennessee to relieve that city, and suggested the propriety of withdrawing from
it, and endeavor to beat the enemy in the field. I hope this course will meet
with the approbation of the Department.
General Johnston on the 16th, from Smithfield, reports the
Federal army south of the Cape Fear, but near Fayetteville. He had ordered
1,000 wagons of the Tennessee army to be used in filling gaps in railroads and
100 wagons to collect supplies in South Carolina for this army. I hope this
will furnish some relief.
General Echols at Wytheville, on the 12th, reports that a
portion of the troops in East Tennessee had removed south of Knoxville,
destination not known, and that the engineer corps which had commenced to repair
the Tennessee Railroad from Knoxville east had been withdrawn and sent to
Chattanooga for the purpose, it was thought, of repairing the road toward
Atlanta. He also states that an intelligent scout just from Kentucky reports
Burbridge's force had been taken to Nashville, and that considerable bodies of
troops were passing up the Ohio on their way to Grant. He believed all these
reports may be relied on.
The enemy seems still to be collecting a force in the
Shenandoah Valley, which indicates another movement as soon as the weather will
permit. Rosser's scouts report that there is some cavalry and infantry now at
Winchester, and that Hancock has a portion of his corps at Hall Town. I think
these troops are intended to supply the place of those under General Sheridan,
which it is plain General Grant has brought to his army. The addition of these
three mounted divisions will give such strength to his cavalry, already
numerically superior to ours, that it will enable him, I fear, to keep our
communications to Richmond broken. Had we been able to use the supplies which
Sheridan has destroyed in his late expedition in maintaining our troops in the
Valley in a body, if his march could not have been arrested it would at least
have been rendered comparatively harmless, and we should have been spared the
mortification that has attended it. Now, I do not see how we can sustain even
our small force of cavalry around Richmond. I have had this morning to send
Gen. William H. F. Lee's division back to Stony Creek, whence I had called it
in the last few days, because I cannot provide it with forage. I regret to have
to report these difficulties, but think you ought to be apprised of them, in
order if there is any remedy it should be applied.
I have the honor to
be, your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE,
General.
SOURCE: John William Jones, Life and Letters of
Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man, p. 360-2
