ESVILLE, ALABAMA, October 25, 1864.

MAJOR STEPHEN A. BRICE:

Dear Sir,--The world goes on, and wicked men sound asleep. Davis
has sworn to destroy my army, and Beauregard has come to do the
work,--so if you expect to share in our calamity, come down. I
offer you this last chance for staff duty, and hope you have had
enough in the field. I do not wish to hurry you, but you can't get
aboard a ship at sea. So if you want to make the trip, come to
Chattanooga and take your chances of meeting me.

Yours truly,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major General.

One night--at Cheraw, I think it was--he sent for me to talk to him. I
found him lying on a bed of Spanish moss they had made for him. He asked
me a great many questions about St. Louis, and praised Mr. Brinsmade,
especially his management of the Sanitary Commission.

"Brice," he said, after a while, "you remember when Grant sent me to beat
off Joe Johnston's army from Vicksburg. You were wounded then, by the
way, in that dash Lauman made. Grant thought he ought to warn me against
Johnston.

"'He's wily, Sherman,' said he. 'He's a dangerous man.'

"'Grant,' said I, 'you give me men enough and time enough to look over
the ground, and I'm not afraid of the devil.'"

Nothing could sum up the man better than that. And now what a trick of
fate it is that he has Johnston before him again, in what we hope will
prove the last gasp of the war! He likes Johnston, by the way, and has
the greatest respect for him.

I wish you could have peeped into our camp once in a while. In the rare
bursts of sunshine on this march our premises have been decorated with
gay red blankets, and sombre gray ones brought from the quartermasters,
and white Hudson's Bay blankets (not so white now), all being between
forked sticks. It is wonderful how the pitching of a few tents, and the
busy crackle of a few fires, and the sound of voices--sometimes merry,
sometimes sad, depending on the weather, will change the look of a lonely
pine knoll. You ask me how we fare. I should be heartily ashamed if a
word of complaint ever fell from my lips. But the men! Whenever I wake up
at night with my feet in a puddle between the blankets, I think of the
men. The corduroy roads which our horses stumble over through the mud,
they make as well as march on. Our flies are carried in wagons, and our
utensils and provisions. They must often bear on their backs the little
d