General Sherman then divided his army into two wings. The right wing in command of General O. O. Howard, and the left wing in command of General Slocum. Hood had started out to return a Roland for an Oliver. Forrest was operating in Tennessee and Kentucky, and menacing the States north of the Ohio river. Hood’s plan was to join him and while Sherman was living upon short commons in Georgia, his army would be reveling in the rich spoils of Northern States. The idea was a good one, the point was to carry it out. On the fifth of October Hood destroyed a considerable length of railroad north of Atlanta. Sherman, from a high point, saw the railroad burning for miles. At Alatoona General Corse had a small force, among his troops was the 4th Minnesota, which earned a record, in the defense of that mountain pass which will go down to the ages yet to come, in the history of the war. From the heights of Kenesaw, Sherman’s signal officer read a dispatch, signaled from a hole in the block-house at Alatoona; “I am short a cheek bone and part of an ear, but we can whip all hell yet. CORSE, Com’d’g.” Tradition says that Sherman signaled “hold the fort, I am coming,” but I believe Sherman denies this. At any rate, the fact that Corse did hold the fort, and that he knew from the signal corps on Kenesaw that Sherman was coming to his aid, gave rise to the thoughts that inspired the writer of the little poem, “Hold the fort, for I am coming.” Sherman strengthened Thomas by sending Stanley with the 4th corps and ordering Schofield with the Army of the Ohio to report to him. On the 2d of November General Grant approved Sherman’s plan of the campaign to the sea, and on the 10th he started back to Atlanta. The real march to the sea commenced on the 15th. Howard with the right wing and cavalry, went to Jonesboro and Milledgeville, then the capital of Georgia. Slocum with the left wing went to Stone Mountain to threaten Augusta.