Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams
Sir: On the night of the 20th instant the enemy, under the pressure of the siege, secretly withdrew from Savannah, and Major General Sherman entered the city, in which he took eight hundred prisoners, one hundred and fifty guns, with abundant ammunition, three steamers, and thirteen locomotives, one hundred and ninety cars, and a quantity of cotton, variously reported at twenty-five thousand to thirty-three thousand bales. The enemy blew up their ironclads and gunboats. General Foster, co-operating with Sherman, promptly cleared the river from Tybee to the wharves, and Savannah is again reposing under the protection of the flag of the Union. The enemy escaped across the river and the causeways which lead over the marshes which cover its northern bank. It is believed that General Sherman’s army will not remain inactive. No significant military movement has occurred at Richmond.
The combined land and naval expedition, under Major General Butler and [Page 69] Admiral Porter, proceeded to the mouth of the Cape Fear river, but the weather being unfavorable they had not, at the date of our, latest advices, been able to operate.
Silence prevails in the valley of the Shenandoah, except that Major General Sheridan has a large force engaged in a reconnaissance upon the Orange and Alexandria railroad in the region of Gordonsville.
Major General Thomas’s victory at Nashville proves the most completely successful field triumph of the war. Virtually he destroyed half the enemy’s force, and captured nearly all of his cannon. He was still in pursuit of Hood, who was retreating southward when last heard from. Thomas’s headquarters are at Pulaski. There he has just destroyed twenty wagons filled with ammunition, two guns, and burned ten thousand stand of small-arms. Hood’s means of transportation are wasted, and his force is now reduced to fifteen thousand, exclusive of cavalry, and he has only eight cannon.
Stoneman’s expedition on the border, between Tennessee and Virginia, seems to be very successful.
The Canadian authorities have become watchful, active, and diligent, and raids and alarms upon the frontier have suddenly ceased.
Congress has adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and the people are joyously celebrating them under the belief that the solution of our terrible political problem is revealed, although not yet realized, in the extinguishment of slavery and the stability of the Union.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
(Same, mutatis mutandis, to all our principal ministers in Europe.)