“SIR: The undersigned mayor, and two members of council for the city of Atlanta, for the time being the only legal organ of the people of the said city, to express their wants and wishes, ask leave most earnestly, but respectfully, to petition you to reconsider the order requiring them to leave Atlanta. At first view it struck us that the measure would involve extraordinary hardship and loss, but since we have seen the practical execution of it, so far as it has progressed, and the individual condition of many of the people, and heard their statements as to the inconveniences, loss, and suffering attending it, we are satisfied that the amount of it will involve in the aggregate consequences appalling and heartrending. Many poor women are in an advanced state of pregnancy; others now having young children, and whose husbands are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say: ‘I have such a one sick at home; who will wait on them when I am gone?’ Others say: ‘What are we to do? We have no houses to go to, and no means to buy, build, or to rent any—no parents, friends, or relatives to go to.’ Another says: ‘I will try and take this or that article of property, but such and such things I must leave behind, though I need them much.’ We reply to them: ‘General Sherman will carry your property to Rough and Ready, and General Hood will take it there on.’ And they will reply to this: ‘But I want to leave the railroad at such a point, and cannot get conveyance from there on.’ We only refer to a few facts to try to illustrate in part how the measure will operate in practice. As you advanced, the people north of us fell back, and before your arrival here a large portion of the people had retired south, so that the country south of this is already crowded, and without houses to accommodate the people, and we are informed that many are now staying in churches and other out-buildings. This being so, how is it possible for the people still here (mostly women and children) to find any shelter? and how can they live through the winter in the woods—no shelter or subsistence—in the midst of strangers who know them not, and without the power to assist them, if they were willing to do so? This is but a feeble picture of the consequences of this measure. You know the woe, the horror, and the suffering cannot be described by words. Imagination can only conceive of it, and we ask you to take these things into consideration. We know your mind and time are constantly occupied with the duties of your command, which almost deter us from asking your attention to this matter; but thought it might be that you had not considered the subject in all its awful consequences, and that on more reflection, you, we hope, would not make this people an exception to all mankind,