Answer: 

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, September 26, 1864.

GENERAL:  I have your dispatch of to-day.  I have already sent one division (Newton’s) to Chattanooga, and another (Corse’s) to Rome.

Our armies are much reduced, and if I send back any more, I will not be able to threaten Georgia much.  There are men enough to the rear to whip Forrest, but they are necessarily scattered to defend the roads.

Can you expedite the sending to Nashville of the recruits that are in Indiana and Ohio?  They could occupy the forts.

Hood is now on the West Point road, twenty-four miles south of this, and draws his supplies by that road.  Jefferson Davis is there to-day, and superhuman efforts will be made to break my road.

Forrest is now lieutenant-general, and commands all the enemy’s cavalry.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

General Grant first thought I was in error in supposing that Jeff.  Davis was at Macon and Palmetto, but on the 27th I received a printed copy of his speech made at Macon on the 22d, which was so significant that I ordered it to be telegraphed entire as far as Louisville, to be sent thence by mail to Washington, and on the same day received this dispatch: 

WASHINGTON, D. C., September 27, 1864-9 a.m. 
Major-General SHERMAN, Atlanta: 
You say Jeff Davis is on a visit to General Hood.  I judge that
Brown and Stephens are the objects of his visit. 
A. LINCOLN, President of the United States.

To which I replied: 

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, September 28, 1864.

President LINCOLN, Washington, D. C.: 

I have positive knowledge that Mr. Davis made a speech at Macon, on the 22d, which I mailed to General Halleck yesterday.  It was bitter against General Jos.  Johnston and Governor Brown.  The militia are on furlough.  Brown is at Milledgeville, trying to get a Legislature to meet next month, but he is afraid to act unless in concert with other Governors, Judge Wright, of Rome, has been here, and Messrs. Hill and Nelson, former members of Congress, are here now, and will go to meet Wright at Rome, and then go back to Madison and Milledgeville.

Great efforts are being made to reenforce Hood’s army, and to break up my railroads, and I should have at once a good reserve force at Nashville.  It would have a bad effect, if I were forced to send back any considerable part of my army to guard roads, so as to weaken me to an extent that I could not act offensively if the occasion calls for it.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.