had decided to retain him in command and, acceding to Hood's request, transferred Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, one of Hood's corps commanders, out of the Army of Tennessee. He also established a new theater commander to supervise Hood and the department of Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, although the officer selected for the assignment, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, was not expected to exert any real operational control of the armies in the field. Although Sherman was planning to march east to seize the city of Savannah, Georgia, (the campaign that would be known as Sherman's March to the Sea) he was concerned about his lines of communications back to Chattanooga. One particular threat was the cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had long bedeviled Union expeditions with lightning raids into their rear areas. On September 29, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant urged Sherman to dispose of Forrest and Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville, Tennessee, to organize all of the troops in the state. Sherman sent another division, under Brig. Gen. James D. Morgan, to Chattanooga. Sherman had some advance notice of the nature of Hood's proposed campaign. In a series of speeches given at stops along his way back to Richmond, President Davis rallied his listeners by predicting success for Hood, speeches that were reported in the press and read avidly by Sherman. In Columbia, South Carolina, his speech included: Opposing forces Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee, at 39,000 men, constituted the second-largest remaining army of the Confederacy, ranking in strength only after Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The army consisted of the corps of Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee, and Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, and cavalry forces under Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Confederate inspections produced after the fall of Atlanta, but before the start of the new campaign indicate that while the Confederate Army of Tennessee's soldiers were poorly clothed, they were well equipped with modern weapons. Union At the beginning of the campaign, Union forces designated the Military Division of the Mississippi were commanded by Sherman in Atlanta, but his personal involvement in the campaign lasted only until the end of October. Reporting to Sherman was the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas (the "Rock of Chickamauga"), the force previously commanded by Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans. Thomas was the principal