If we can, we should act to prevent this.

Your spare army, as it were, moving as proposed, will do it.
In addition to holding Savannah, it looks to me that an intrenched camp ought to be held on the railroad between Savannah and Charleston.

Your movement toward Branchville will probably enable Foster to reach this with his own force.

This will give us a position in the South from which we can threaten the interior without marching over long, narrow causeways, easily defended, as we have heretofore been compelled to do.

Could not such a camp be established about Pocotaligo or Coosawhatchie?
I have thought that, Hood being so completely wiped out for present harm, I might bring A.J.Smith here, with fourteen to fifteen thousand men.