Autograph letter signed by General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) to Colonel Absalom Hanks Markland (1825-1888). Goldsboro, North Carolina, 7 April 1864. 3 pages, 8vo, written on United State Military Telegraph forms.

Sherman writes to Markland to discuss mail distribution logistics: "I have thought over mail matters. Give publicity that all mail matter for Sherman's army should come to Old Point in Baltimore. Have an agent there to see that all bags are sent to Roanoke Island and New Berne there to be distributed...the probabilities are now that we will continue...with the coast at some point off North Carolina. All this [sic] camp gain mails for Charleston & Savannah might also come. This way leaving adams express to carry the mail matters by ocean the quicker you get a regular daily and the weekly mail through..."

Markland was a Special Agent of the Post Office Department. His collaboration with Sherman at this juncture was crucial, as the latter was in the midst of planning his pivotal Atlanta Campaign, wherein he captured the city and embarked on the March to the Sea. Markland's services to the Union army were so appreciated by Ulysses Grant that in 1865 he presented Markland with his personal saddle as a token of his esteem. 

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