PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN.

9

On September 8th, Hood telegraphed to General Bragg,at Bichmond, suggesting that all the reserves of Georgia ,under General Cobb, be ordered to his army, and that Gen-eral Taylor be ordered to relieve Hardee in the command ofhis corps, bringing with him all the troops which could bespared from the department Taylor was then commanding,and which included Alabama and Mississippi . No imme-diate notice seems to have been taken of this at Bichmond,and, on the 13th, Hood repeated the request to Davis him-self, charging Hardee with being the cause of all the de-feats his army had suffered, except that of July 28tli at EzraChurch. A week later, still apparently without a reply, hesketched his proposed movement upon Sherman’s communi-cations, and he now learned that the Confederate Presidentwould immediately visit his camp. Accordingly, on Sep-tember 25th, Davis reached Hood’s headquarters at Pal-metto, and a couple of days were spent in conference notonly with Hood , but -with his principal subordinates. Thegeneral plan of Hood’s new campaign was approved, with theunderstanding that if he should succeed in drawing Shermanaway from Atlanta , the new invasion of Tennessee should bemade by crossing the river near Guntersville , not far fromthe Georgia line. The decision upon Hood’s demand forHardee’s removal from his corps was a more troublesomequestion than the approval of the plan of operations. Thegreat injustice of Hood’s charges has been shown in thestory of the Atlanta campaign; but the dissatisfaction of acommanding general with a subordinate is so strong a rea-son for a change that it will rarely do to ignore it. Lieu-tenant-General Bicliard Taylor, whom Hood suggested asHardee’s successor, was the brother-in-law of Mr. Davis, andthe latter very well knew that this relationship would com-plicate the difficulty and be seized upon by many as proof1 *