October 16, 1863

October 16, 1863

---True to Gen. Sherman’s predictions, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant receives orders from Gen. Halleck:

GENERAL: You will received herewith the order of the President of the United States placing you in command of the Departments of the Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee. The organization of these departments will be changed as you may deem most practicable. You will immediately proceed to Chattanooga and relieve General Rosecrans. You can communicate with Generals Burnside and Sherman by telegraph. A summary of the order sent to those officers will be sent to you immediately. It is left optional with you to supersede General Rosecrans by General G. H. Thomas or not. Any other changes will be made an your request by telegraph.

One of the first objects requiring your attention is the supply of your armies. Another is the security of the passes in the Georgia mountains to shut out the enemy from Tennessee and Kentucky. You will consult with General Meigs and Colonel Scott in regard to transportation and supplies.

This will constitute one of the most fateful and significant decisions by the Union government in the entire war.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, USA

---John Beauchamp Jones, a clerk in the Confederate Department of War, writes in his journal of several bits of war news, including a new conspiracy to bring California and the Southwest into the Confederacy:

Judge Hastings, of California, proposes to return thither and publish a pamphlet describing newly discovered gold mines, and organizing companies to work them, which shall be secessionists; and when organized, he will fall upon and destroy the United States troops, march into Arizona, and from thence pour reinforcements into Texas. The Secretary, in the absence of the President, sends a copy of this scheme to Lieut.-Gen. E. K. Smith, trans-Mississippi Department, and gives some encouragement to the judge; abstaining, however, for the present, from devoting any money to the project.