"Why can't we go through Snake Creek Gap?" asked Thomas. The voices of the two, according to my informant, here became lowered; the two generals bent their heads over the map; and it is claimed by Thomas's admirer that the result of that conversation was the occupation of the mountain gorge of Snake Creek Gap. Although told with much detail and precision, I am not at all disposed to credit this story, and I am convinced that, though not without foundation, there is an error somewhere. Another admirer of General Thomas wrote me claiming for him the credit of having originated and planned "Sherman's march to the sea." He states that, shortly after the occupation of Atlanta, and while Hood's army was still in Sherman's front, General Thomas proposed to General Sherman to take the 14th and 20th _corps_, and march through the state to Savannah or some point on the coast equally important. The plan was not immediately acted on; information was received of Hood's purpose to flank Atlanta and go northward, and General Thomas was sent to Nashville to organize the forces there in order to meet him. Hood did move north, and Sherman decided to leave him to the care or the mercy of Thomas, while he, with the 14th, 15th, 17th, and 20th corps, twice the force originally said to have been proposed by Thomas, and really three times the force actually necessary for the movement, made the march which Thomas had planned. I very much doubt the full truth of this statement, though I do not know that it is untrue in any particular. But whether or not he planned it matters little; Thomas at Nashville may be said to have executed it, and to him, and not to Sherman, belongs the credit of its success. I have always wondered how Sherman came to delegate the subordinate, Thomas, with the lesser half of the army, to fight the main battles and conduct the real campaign, while he, the superior officer, with the greater half of the force, made a detour in which no danger was encountered--no danger, in fact, apprehended--and which could have been better effected with half the force.