not required to treat the so-called non-combatant rebels better than they themselves treat each other.  Even herein Virginia, within fifty miles of Washington, they strip their own families of provisions, leaving them, as our army advances, to be fed by us, or to starve within our lines.  We have fed this class of people long enough.  Let them go with their husbands and fathers in the rebel ranks; and if they won’t go, we must send them to their friends and natural protectors.  I would destroy every mill and factory within reach which I did not want for my own use.  This the rebels have done, not only in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but also in Virginia and other rebel States, when compelled to fall back before our armies.  In many sections of the country they have not left a mill to grind grain for their own suffering families, lest we might use them to supply our armies.  We most do the same.

I have endeavored to impress these views upon our commanders for the last two years.  You are almost the only one who has properly applied them.  I do not approve of General Hunter’s course in burning private homes or uselessly destroying private property.  That is barbarous.  But I approve of taking or destroying whatever may serve as supplies to us or to the enemy’s army.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. Halleck, Major-General, Chief of Staff

In order to effect the exchange of prisoners, to facilitate the exodus of the people of Atlanta, and to keep open communication with the South, we established a neutral camp, at and about the railroad-station next south of Atlanta, known as “Rough and Ready,” to which point I dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel Willard Warner, of my staff, with a guard of one hundred men, and General Hood sent Colonel Clare, of his staff, with a similar guard; these officers and men harmonized perfectly, and parted good friends when their work was done.  In the mean time I also had reconnoitred the entire rebel lines about Atlanta, which were well built, but were entirely too extensive to be held by a single corps or division of troops, so I instructed Colonel Poe, United States Engineers, on my staff, to lay off an inner and shorter line, susceptible of defense by a smaller garrison.

By the middle of September all these matters were in progress, the reports of the past campaign were written up and dispatched to Washington, and our thoughts began to turn toward the future.  Admiral Farragut had boldly and successfully run the forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay, which resulted in the capture of Fort Morgan, so that General Canby was enabled to begin his regular operations against Mobile City, with a view to open the Alabama River to navigation.  My first thoughts were to concert operations with him, either by way of Montgomery, Alabama, or by the Appalachicula; but so long a line, to be used as a base for further operations eastward, was not advisable, and I concluded to await the initiative of the enemy, supposing that he would be forced to resort to some desperate campaign by the clamor raised at the South on account of the great loss to them of the city of Atlanta.