Out of touch with the North and living largely off the land, Major General Sherman and his Union forces kept President Lincoln in suspense regarding the success of this operation for thirty-two days. On December 22, 1864, Sherman relieved the president’s anxiety, as this diary records, and sparked renewed celebrations in the North with the telegraph message that Savannah had fallen. The diary was kept by David Homer Bates, manager of the Telegraph Office in the War Department during the Civil War. The entry Bates recorded for December 26, shows the jubilation in Washington, D.C., that greeted Sherman’s news.