Book: The Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant, Part 4.

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Sherman assumed command of the military division of the Mississippi on
the 18th of March, and we left Nashville together for Cincinnati. I had
Sherman accompany me that far on my way back to Washington so that we
could talk over the matters about which I wanted to see him, without
losing any more time from my new command than was necessary. The first
point which I wished to discuss was particularly about the co-operation
of his command with mine when the spring campaign should commence. There
were also other and minor points, minor as compared with the great
importance of the question to be decided by sanguinary war--the
restoration to duty of officers who had been relieved from important
commands, namely McClellan, Burnside and Fremont in the East, and Buell,
McCook, Negley and Crittenden in the West.

Some time in the winter of 1863-64 I had been invited by the
general-in-chief to give my views of the campaign I thought advisable
for the command under me--now Sherman's. General J. E. Johnston was
defending Atlanta and the interior of Georgia with an army, the largest
part of which was stationed at Dalton, about 38 miles south of
Chattanooga. Dalton is at the junction of the railroad from Cleveland
with the one from Chattanooga to Atlanta.

There could have been no difference of opinion as to the first duty of
the armies of the military division of the Mississippi. Johnston's army
was the first objective, and that important railroad centre, Atlanta,
the second. At the time I wrote General Halleck giving my views of the
approaching campaign, and at the time I met General Sherman, it was
expected that General Banks would be through with the campaign which he
had been ordered upon before my appointment to the command of all the
armies, and would be ready to co-operate with the armies east of the
Mississippi, his part in the programme being to move upon Mobile by land
while the navy would close the harbor and assist to the best of its
ability. (*22) The plan therefore was for Sherman to attack Johnston and
destroy his army if possible, to capture Atlanta and hold it, and with
his troops and those of Banks to hold a line through to Mobile, or at
least to hold Atlanta and command the railroad running east and west,
and the troops from one or other of the armies to hold important points
on the southern road, the only east and west road that would be left in
the possession of the enemy. This would cut the Confederacy in two
again, as our gaining possession of the Mississippi River had done
before. Banks was not ready in time for the part assigned to him, and
circumstances that could not be foreseen determined the campaign which
was afterwards made, the success and grandeur of which has resounded
throughout all lands.

In regard to restoring officers who had been relieved from important
commands to duty again, I left Sherman to look after those who had been
removed in the West while I looked out for the rest. I directed,
however, that he should make no assignment until I could speak to the
Secretary of War about the matter. I shortly after recommended to the
Secretary the assignment of General Buell to duty. I received the
assurance that duty would be offered to him; and afterwards the
Secretary told me that he had offered Buell an assignment and that the
latter had declined it, saying that it would be degradation to accept
the assignment offered. I understood afterwards that he refused to
serve under either Sherman or Canby because he had ranked them both.
Both graduated before him and ranked him in the old army. Sherman
ranked him as a brigadier-general. All of them ranked me in the old
army, and Sherman and Buell did as brigadiers. The worst excuse a
soldier can make for declining service is that he once ranked the
commander he is ordered to report to.

On the 23d of March I was back in Washington, and on the 26th took up my
headquarters at Culpeper Court-House, a few miles south of the
headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.

Although hailing from Illinois myself, the State of the President, I
never met Mr. Lincoln until called to the capital to receive my
commission as lieutenant-general. I knew him, however, very well and
favorably from the accounts given by officers under me at the West who
had known him all their lives. I had also read the remarkable series of
debates between Lincoln and Douglas a few years before, when they were
rival candidates for the United States Senate. I was then a resident of
Missouri, and by no means a "Lincoln man" in that contest; but I
recognized then his great ability.

In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated to me that he had
never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be
conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them: but that
procrastination on the part of commanders, and the pressure from the
people at the North and Congress, WHICH WAS ALWAYS WITH HIM, forced him
into issuing his series of "Military Orders"--one, two, three, etc. He
did not know but they were all wrong, and did know that some of them
were. All he wanted or had ever wanted was some one who would take the
responsibility and act, and call on him for all the assistance needed,
pledging himself to use all the power of the government in rendering
such assistance. Assuring him that I would do the best I could with the
means at hand, and avoid as far as possible annoying him or the War
Department, our first interview ended.

The Secretary of War I had met once before only, but felt that I knew
him better.

While commanding in West Tennessee we had occasionally held
conversations over the wires, at night, when they were not being
otherwise used. He and General Halleck both cautioned me against giving
the President my plans of campaign, saying that he was so kind-hearted,
so averse to refusing anything asked of him, that some friend would be
sure to get from him all he knew. I should have said that in our
interview the President told me he did not want to know what I proposed
to do. But he submitted a plan of campaign of his own which he wanted
me to hear and then do as I pleased about. He brought out a map of
Virginia on which he had evidently marked every position occupied by the
Federal and Confederate armies up to that time. He pointed out on the
map two streams which empty into the Potomac, and suggested that the
army might be moved on boats and landed between the mouths of these
streams. We would then have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and the
tributaries would protect our flanks while we moved out. I listened
respectfully, but did not suggest that the same streams would protect
Lee's flanks while he was shutting us up.

I did not communicate my plans to the President, nor did I to the
Secretary of War or to General Halleck.

March the 26th my headquarters were, as stated, at Culpeper, and the
work of preparing for an early campaign commenced.



CHAPTER XLVII.

THE MILITARY SITUATION--PLANS FOR THE CAMPAIGN--SHERIDAN ASSIGNED TO
COMMAND OF THE CAVALRY--FLANK MOVEMENTS--FORREST AT FORT PILLOW--GENERAL
BANKS'S EXPEDITION--COLONEL MOSBY--AN INCIDENT OF THE WILDERNESS
CAMPAIGN.

When I assumed command of all the armies the situation was about this:
the Mississippi River was guarded from St. Louis to its mouth; the line
of the Arkansas was held, thus giving us all the North-west north of
that river. A few points in Louisiana not remote from the river were
held by the Federal troops, as was also the mouth of the Rio Grande.
East of the Mississippi we held substantially all north of the Memphis
and Charleston Railroad as far east as Chattanooga, thence along the
line of the Tennessee and Holston rivers, taking in nearly all of the
State of Tennessee. West Virginia was in our hands; and that part of
old Virginia north of the Rapidan and east of the Blue Ridge we also
held. On the sea-coast we had Fortress Monroe and Norfolk in Virginia;
Plymouth, Washington and New Berne in North Carolina; Beaufort, Folly
and Morris islands, Hilton Head, Port Royal and Fort Pulaski in South
Carolina and Georgia; Fernandina, St. Augustine, Key West and Pensacola
in Florida. The balance of the Southern territory, an empire in extent,
was still in the hands of the enemy.

Sherman, who had succeeded me in the command of the military division of
the Mississippi, commanded all the troops in the territory west of the
Alleghanies and north of Natchez, with a large movable force about
Chattanooga. His command was subdivided into four departments, but the
commanders all reported to Sherman and were subject to his orders. This
arrangement, however, insured the better protection of all lines of
communication through the acquired territory, for the reason that these
different department commanders could act promptly in case of a sudden
or unexpected raid within their respective jurisdictions without
awaiting the orders of the division commander.

In the East the opposing forces stood in substantially the same
relations towards each other as three years before, or when the war
began; they were both between the Federal and Confederate capitals. It
is true, footholds had been secured by us on the sea-coast, in Virginia
and North Carolina, but, beyond that, no substantial advantage had been
gained by either side. Battles had been fought of as great severity as
had ever been known in war, over ground from the James River and
Chickahominy, near Richmond, to Gettysburg and Chambersburg, in
Pennsylvania, with indecisive results, sometimes favorable to the
National army, sometimes to the Confederate army; but in every instance,
I believe, claimed as victories for the South by the Southern press if
not by the Southern generals. The Northern press, as a whole, did not
discourage these claims; a portion of it always magnified rebel success
and belittled ours, while another portion, most sincerely earnest in
their desire for the preservation of the Union and the overwhelming
success of the Federal armies, would nevertheless generally express
dissatisfaction with whatever victories were gained because they were
not more complete.

That portion of the Army of the Potomac not engaged in guarding lines of
communication was on the northern bank of the Rapidan. The Army of
Northern Virginia confronting it on the opposite bank of the same river,
was strongly intrenched and commanded by the acknowledged ablest general
in the Confederate army. The country back to the James River is cut up
with many streams, generally narrow, deep, and difficult to cross except
where bridged. The region is heavily timbered, and the roads narrow,
and very bad after the least rain. Such an enemy was not, of course,
unprepared with adequate fortifications at convenient intervals all the
way back to Richmond, so that when driven from one fortified position
they would always have another farther to the rear to fall back into.

To provision an army, campaigning against so formidable a foe through
such a country, from wagons alone seemed almost impossible. System and
discipline were both essential to its accomplishment.

The Union armies were now divided into nineteen departments, though four
of them in the West had been concentrated into a single military
division. The Army of the Potomac was a separate command and had no
territorial limits. There were thus seventeen distinct commanders.
Before this time these various armies had acted separately and
independently of each other, giving the enemy an opportunity often of
depleting one command, not pressed, to reinforce another more actively
engaged. I determined to stop this. To this end I regarded the Army of
the Potomac as the centre, and all west to Memphis along the line
described as our position at the time, and north of it, the right wing;
the Army of the James, under General Butler, as the left wing, and all
the troops south, as a force in rear of the enemy. Some of these latter
were occupying positions from which they could not render service
proportionate to their numerical strength. All such were depleted to
the minimum necessary to hold their positions as a guard against
blockade runners; where they could not do this their positions were
abandoned altogether. In this way ten thousand men were added to the
Army of the James from South Carolina alone, with General Gillmore in
command. It was not contemplated that General Gillmore should leave his
department; but as most of his troops were taken, presumably for active
service, he asked to accompany them and was permitted to do so.
Officers and soldiers on furlough, of whom there were many thousands,
were ordered to their proper commands; concentration was the order of
the day, and to have it accomplished in time to advance at the earliest
moment the roads would permit was the problem.

As a reinforcement to the Army of the Potomac, or to act in support of
it, the 9th army corps, over twenty thousand strong, under General
Burnside, had been rendezvoused at Annapolis, Maryland. This was an
admirable position for such a reinforcement. The corps could be brought
at the last moment as a reinforcement to the Army of the Potomac, or it
could be thrown on the sea-coast, south of Norfolk, in Virginia or North
Carolina, to operate against Richmond from that direction. In fact
Burnside and the War Department both thought the 9th corps was intended
for such an expedition up to the last moment.

My general plan now was to concentrate all the force possible against
the Confederate armies in the field. There were but two such, as we
have seen, east of the Mississippi River and facing north. The Army of
Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee commanding, was on the south
bank of the Rapidan, confronting the Army of the Potomac; the second,
under General Joseph E. Johnston, was at Dalton, Georgia, opposed to
Sherman who was still at Chattanooga. Beside these main armies the
Confederates had to guard the Shenandoah Valley, a great storehouse to
feed their armies from, and their line of communications from Richmond
to Tennessee. Forrest, a brave and intrepid cavalry general, was in the
West with a large force; making a larger command necessary to hold what
we had gained in Middle and West Tennessee. We could not abandon any
territory north of the line held by the enemy because it would lay the
Northern States open to invasion. But as the Army of the Potomac was
the principal garrison for the protection of Washington even while it
was moving on Lee, so all the forces to the west, and the Army of the
James, guarded their special trusts when advancing from them as well as
when remaining at them. Better indeed, for they forced the enemy to
guard his own lines and resources at a greater distance from ours, and
with a greater force. Little expeditions could not so well be sent out
to destroy a bridge or tear up a few miles of railroad track, burn a
storehouse, or inflict other little annoyances. Accordingly I arranged
for a simultaneous movement all along the line. Sherman was to move
from Chattanooga, Johnston's army and Atlanta being his objective
points. (*23) Crook, commanding in West Virginia, was to move from the
mouth of the Gauley River with a cavalry force and some artillery, the
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to be his objective. Either the enemy
would have to keep a large force to protect their communications, or see
them destroyed and a large amount of forage and provision, which they so
much needed, fall into our hands. Sigel was in command in the Valley of
Virginia. He was to advance up the valley, covering the North from an
invasion through that channel as well while advancing as by remaining
near Harper's Ferry. Every mile he advanced also gave us possession of
stores on which Lee relied. Butler was to advance by the James River,
having Richmond and Petersburg as his objective.

Before the advance commenced I visited Butler at Fort Monroe. This was
the first time I had ever met him. Before giving him any order as to
the part he was to play in the approaching campaign I invited his views.
They were very much such as I intended to direct, and as I did direct
(*24), in writing, before leaving.

General W. F. Smith, who had been promoted to the rank of major-general
shortly after the battle of Chattanooga on my recommendation, had not
yet been confirmed. I found a decided prejudice against his
confirmation by a majority of the Senate, but I insisted that his
services had been such that he should be rewarded. My wishes were now
reluctantly complied with, and I assigned him to the command of one of
the corps under General Butler. I was not long in finding out that the
objections to Smith's promotion were well founded.

In one of my early interviews with the President I expressed my
dissatisfaction with the little that had been accomplished by the
cavalry so far in the war, and the belief that it was capable of
accomplishing much more than it had done if under a thorough leader. I
said I wanted the very best man in the army for that command. Halleck
was present and spoke up, saying: "How would Sheridan do?" I replied:
"The very man I want." The President said I could have anybody I wanted.
Sheridan was telegraphed for that day, and on his arrival was assigned
to the command of the cavalry corps with the Army of the Potomac. This
relieved General Alfred Pleasonton. It was not a reflection on that
officer, however, for I did not know but that he had been as efficient
as any other cavalry commander.

Banks in the Department of the Gulf was ordered to assemble all the
troops he had at New Orleans in time to join in the general move, Mobile
to be his objective.

At this time I was not entirely decided as to whether I should move the
Army of the Potomac by the right flank of the enemy, or by his left.
Each plan presented advantages. (*25) If by his right--my left--the
Potomac, Chesapeake Bay and tributaries would furnish us an easy hauling
distance of every position the army could occupy from the Rapidan to the
James River. But Lee could, if he chose, detach or move his whole army
north on a line rather interior to the one I would have to take in
following. A movement by his left--our right--would obviate this; but
all that was done would have to be done with the supplies and ammunition
we started with. All idea of adopting this latter plan was abandoned
when the limited quantity of supplies possible to take with us was
considered. The country over which we would have to pass was so
exhausted of all food or forage that we would be obliged to carry
everything with us.

While these preparations were going on the enemy was not entirely idle.
In the West Forrest made a raid in West Tennessee up to the northern
border, capturing the garrison of four or five hundred men at Union
City, and followed it up by an attack on Paducah, Kentucky, on the banks
of the Ohio. While he was able to enter the city he failed to capture
the forts or any part of the garrison. On the first intelligence of
Forrest's raid I telegraphed Sherman to send all his cavalry against
him, and not to let him get out of the trap he had put himself into.
Sherman had anticipated me by sending troops against him before he got
my order.

Forrest, however, fell back rapidly, and attacked the troops at Fort
Pillow, a station for the protection of the navigation of the
Mississippi River. The garrison consisted of a regiment of colored
troops, infantry, and a detachment of Tennessee cavalry. These troops
fought bravely, but were overpowered. I will leave Forrest in his
dispatches to tell what he did with them.

"The river was dyed," he says, "with the blood of the slaughtered for
two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred
killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty
killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern
people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners." Subsequently
Forrest made a report in which he left out the part which shocks
humanity to read.

At the East, also, the rebels were busy. I had said to Halleck that
Plymouth and Washington, North Carolina, were unnecessary to hold. It
would be better to have the garrisons engaged there added to Butler's
command. If success attended our arms both places, and others too,
would fall into our hands naturally. These places had been occupied by
Federal troops before I took command of the armies, and I knew that the
Executive would be reluctant to abandon them, and therefore explained my
views; but before my views were carried out the rebels captured the
garrison at Plymouth. I then ordered the abandonment of Washington, but
directed the holding of New Berne at all hazards. This was essential
because New Berne was a port into which blockade runners could enter.

General Banks had gone on an expedition up the Red River long before my
promotion to general command. I had opposed the movement strenuously,
but acquiesced because it was the order of my superior at the time. By
direction of Halleck I had reinforced Banks with a corps of about ten
thousand men from Sherman's command. This reinforcement was wanted back
badly before the forward movement commenced. But Banks had got so far
that it seemed best that he should take Shreveport on the Red River, and
turn over the line of that river to Steele, who commanded in Arkansas,
to hold instead of the line of the Arkansas. Orders were given
accordingly, and with the expectation that the campaign would be ended
in time for Banks to return A. J. Smith's command to where it belonged
and get back to New Orleans himself in time to execute his part in the
general plan. But the expedition was a failure. Banks did not get back
in time to take part in the programme as laid down. Nor was Smith
returned until long after the movements of May, 1864, had been begun.
The services of forty thousand veteran troops, over and above the number
required to hold all that was necessary in the Department of the Gulf,
were thus paralyzed. It is but just to Banks, however, to say that his
expedition was ordered from Washington and he was in no way responsible
except for the conduct of it. I make no criticism on this point. He
opposed the expedition.

By the 27th of April spring had so far advanced as to justify me in
fixing a day for the great move. On that day Burnside left Annapolis to
occupy Meade's position between Bull Run and the Rappahannock. Meade
was notified and directed to bring his troops forward to his advance.
On the following day Butler was notified of my intended advance on the
4th of May, and he was directed to move the night of the same day and
get as far up the James River as possible by daylight, and push on from
there to accomplish the task given him. He was also notified that
reinforcements were being collected in Washington City, which would be
forwarded to him should the enemy fall back into the trenches at
Richmond. The same day Sherman was directed to get his forces up ready
to advance on the 5th. Sigel was in Winchester and was notified to move
in conjunction with the others.

The criticism has been made by writers on the campaign from the Rapidan
to the James River that all the loss of life could have been obviated by
moving the army there on transports. Richmond was fortified and
intrenched so perfectly that one man inside to defend was more than
equal to five outside besieging or assaulting. To get possession of
Lee's army was the first great object. With the capture of his army
Richmond would necessarily follow. It was better to fight him outside
of his stronghold than in it. If the Army of the Potomac had been moved
bodily to the James River by water Lee could have moved a part of his
forces back to Richmond, called Beauregard from the south to reinforce
it, and with the balance moved on to Washington. Then, too, I ordered a
move, simultaneous with that of the Army of the Potomac, up the James
River by a formidable army already collected at the mouth of the river.

While my headquarters were at Culpeper, from the 26th of March to the
4th of May, I generally visited Washington once a week to confer with
the Secretary of War and President. On the last occasion, a few days
before moving, a circumstance occurred which came near postponing my
part in the campaign altogether. Colonel John S. Mosby had for a long
time been commanding a partisan corps, or regiment, which operated in
the rear of the Army of the Potomac. On my return to the field on this
occasion, as the train approached Warrenton Junction, a heavy cloud of
dust was seen to the east of the road as if made by a body of cavalry on
a charge. Arriving at the junction the train was stopped and inquiries
made as to the cause of the dust. There was but one man at the station,
and he informed us that Mosby had crossed a few minutes before at full
speed in pursuit of Federal cavalry. Had he seen our train coming, no
doubt he would have let his prisoners escape to capture the train. I
was on a special train, if I remember correctly, without any guard.

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