General Hood had been pretty well informed of what was going on in Sherman's army, and was disposed to take advantage of the reduction of our forces by furloughs and the absence of numerous officers on leave. The Confederate President had visited him, and changes in his army had been ordered which made the organization more to his mind. Hardee being sent to Savannah to command a department on the coast, General Cheatham succeeded to the command of the corps. Hood proposed to cross the Chattahoochee some twenty miles west of Atlanta, and move on Powder Springs, where he could reach the railroad and force Sherman to attack him or to move south. In the latter case he proposed to follow, and had urged that the forces in central Georgia be increased so as to resist Sherman's progress if it should be toward Augusta or Macon. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. pp. 847, 862.] Mr. Davis had been convinced by the campaign just ended that Hood's fiery energy needed the guidance of a better military intellect, and the plan of placing a common head over Hood's and Taylor's departments had occurred to him. Beauregard was the officer whose rank, next to Johnston, indicated him for the command, but he was disaffected toward Davis, and his friends in Congress were active in opposition to the government. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 183.] General Lee had suggested Beauregard to take Hood's place, and had sounded him as to his willingness to do so after discussing with him the whole situation in Georgia. Lee felt able, thereupon, to assure the President that Beauregard would accept the assignment; saying, "I think you may feel assured that he understands the general condition of affairs, the difficulties with which they are surrounded, and the importance of exerting all his energies for their improvement." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. ii. p. 846.] But having learned Hood's plan of operating upon Sherman's communications, and being impressed anew by his visit with the energy of Hood's nature, which quickly reacted from the discouragement following the fall of Atlanta, he partly accepted Lee's suggestion, modifying it by giving Beauregard the supreme direction of affairs in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, whilst leaving Hood free to carry out the plan of campaign which he proposed, and to retain the command of his army except when Beauregard might be actually present with it. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 880.] General Forrest with his cavalry corps had already been ordered to make a raid upon the railways in Tennessee in pursuance of a suggestion of his own, and on September 16th he started northward. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 818, 835.] This plan very well accorded with Hood's, and when the latter determined, later in the campaign, himself to invade Tennessee, Forrest's orders were extended so as to direct a junction with him. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 843.]