Part 3 (1/2)
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, COMMANDER OF ALL THE ARMIES
During the winter, after the Chattanooga victory, General Grant made his headquarters at Nashville, and devoted himself to acquiring an intimate knowledge of the condition of the large region now under his command, to the reorganization of his own lines of transportation, and the destruction of those of the enemy. He made a perilous journey to Knoxville in the dead of winter, and a brief trip to St. Louis, on account of the dangerous illness of his son there. On this trip he wore citizen's clothes, traveled as quietly as possible, declined all public honors, and made no delays. The whole route might have been a continuous enthusiastic ovation; but he would not have it so. His work was not done, and he sternly discountenanced all premature glorification. Too many generals had fallen from a high estate in the popular judgment, for him to court a similar fate. The promotions that gave him greater opportunity of service he accepted; but he preferred to keep his capital of popularity, whatever it might be, on deposit and acc.u.mulating while he stuck to his unaccomplished task, instead of drawing upon it as he went along for purposes of vanity and display. Of vulgar vanity he had as little as any soldier in the army.
Nashville was the base of supplies for all the operations in his military division. Its lines of transportation had been worn out and broken down, largely through incompetent management. He put them in charge of new men, who reconstructed and equipped them. While engaged in this necessary work he dispatched Sherman on an expedition through Mississippi, which he hoped would reach Mobile; but it terminated at Meriden, through failure of a cavalry force to join it. But it did a work in destruction of railroads and railroad property, that inflicted immense damage on the Confederacy. Throughout the winter Grant worked as if his reputation was yet to be made, and to be made in that military division.
Meanwhile Congress and the country were pondering his deserts, and his ability for still greater responsibilities. The result of this deliberation was the pa.s.sage of the act, approved March 1, 1864, reestablis.h.i.+ng the grade of lieutenant-general in the regular army. The next day President Lincoln nominated General Grant to the rank, and the nomination was promptly confirmed. He was ordered to Was.h.i.+ngton to receive the supreme commission. It was his first visit to the national capital; his first personal introduction to the President, although he had heard him make a speech many years before; his first meeting with the leading men in civil official life, who were sustaining the armies and guiding the nation in its imperiled way. He came crowned with the glory of victories second in magnitude and significance to none, since Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Everybody desired to see him, and to honor him.
Yet he journeyed to Was.h.i.+ngton as simply and quietly as possible, avoiding demonstration. He arrived on the 8th of March, and going to a hotel waited, unrecognized, until the throng of travelers had registered, and then wrote, simply, ”U. S. Grant and son, Galena.” The next day, at 1 o'clock, he was received by President Lincoln in the cabinet-room of the White House. There were present, by the President's invitation, the members of the cabinet, General Halleck, and a few other distinguished men. After introductions the President addressed him as follows:--
”GENERAL GRANT,--The expression of the nation's approbation of what you have already done, and its reliance on you for what remains to be done in the existing great struggle, are now presented with this commission, const.i.tuting you lieutenant-general in the army of the United States.
With the high honor, devolves on you an additional responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under G.o.d, it will sustain you. I scarcely need to add, that with what I here speak for the nation goes my own hearty personal concurrence.”
General Grant made the following reply:--
”MR. PRESIDENT,--I accept the commission with grat.i.tude for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the n.o.ble armies that have fought on so many battlefields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving upon me; and I know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies; and, above all, to the favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men.”
The next day he was a.s.signed to the command of all the armies, with headquarters in the field. He made a hurried trip to Culpeper Court House for a conference with General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac; but would not linger in Was.h.i.+ngton to be praised and feted. He hastened back to Nashville, where, on the 17th, he issued an order a.s.suming command of the armies of the United States, announcing that until further notice, his headquarters would be with the Army of the Potomac. General Halleck was relieved from duty as general-in-chief; but was a.s.signed by Grant to duty in Was.h.i.+ngton, as chief-of-staff of the army. Sherman was a.s.signed to command the military division of the Mississippi, which was enlarged, and McPherson took Sherman's place as commander of the Army of the Tennessee; Thomas remaining in command of the Army of the c.u.mberland. On the 23d Grant was again in Was.h.i.+ngton, accompanied by his family and his personal staff. On the next day he took actual command, and immediately reorganized the Army of the Potomac in three corps,--the Second, Fifth, and Sixth,--commanded by Major-Generals Hanc.o.c.k, Warren, and Sedgwick; Major-General Meade retaining the supreme command. The cavalry was consolidated into a corps under Sheridan. Burnside commanded the Ninth Corps, which for a brief time acted independently.
This crisis of Grant's life should not be pa.s.sed over without allusion to the remarkable letters that pa.s.sed between Grant and Sherman before he left Nashville to receive his new commission. Grant wrote to Sherman as follows:--
”Whilst I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I do how much of this success is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious putting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom it has been my good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me. There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and a.s.sistance have been of help to me, you know; how far your execution of whatever has been given you to do ent.i.tles you to the reward I am receiving you cannot know as well as I. I feel all the grat.i.tude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction.”
Grant's modesty, generosity, and magnanimity s.h.i.+ne in this acknowledgment. If there were no other record ill.u.s.trating these qualities, this alone would be an irrefragable testimony to his possession of them. There can be no appeal from its transparent, cordial sincerity.
Sherman's reply is too long to be quoted fully, but the parts of it that reveal his estimate of Grant's qualities and his confidence in him are important with reference to the purpose of this sketch:--
”You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in a.s.signing to us too large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement....
You are now Was.h.i.+ngton's legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability.... I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype, Was.h.i.+ngton, as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic is the simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith the Christian has in his Saviour. This faith gave you victory at s.h.i.+loh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga,--no doubts, no answers,--and I tell you it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you thought of me; and if I got in a tight place you would help me out if alive.”
He besought Grant not to stay in Was.h.i.+ngton, but to come back to the Mississippi Valley, ”the seat of coming empire, and from the West where [when?] our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic.” But Grant was wiser. He felt that the duty to which his new commission called him was to try conclusions with General Lee, the most ill.u.s.trious and successful of the Confederate commanders, whom he had not yet encountered and vanquished. His new rank gave him an authority and prestige which would enable him, he trusted, to overcome the discouragements and discontents of the n.o.ble Army of the Potomac, and wield its unified force with victorious might. He knew, moreover, that the government and the people trusted him and would sustain him, as they trusted and would sustain no other, in a fresh and final attempt to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia, upon which the hopes of the Confederacy were staked. Not so much ambition as duty determined him to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA
Wherever Grant had control in the West, and in all his counsels, his distinct purpose was to ma.s.s the Union forces and not scatter them, and to get at the enemy. With what ideas and intention he began the new task he set forth definitely in his report made in July, 1865.
”From an early period in the rebellion, I had been impressed with the idea that the active and continuous operations of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regardless of season and weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of the war.... I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance; second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal sections of our common country to the Const.i.tution and laws of the land.”
Grant instructed General Butler, who had a large army at Fortress Monroe, to make Richmond his objective point. He instructed General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, that Lee's army ”would be his objective point, and wherever Lee went he would go also.” He hoped to defeat and capture Lee, or to drive him back on Richmond, following close and establis.h.i.+ng a connection with Butler's army there, if Butler had succeeded in advancing so far. Sherman was to move against Johnston's army, and Sigel, with a strong force, was to protect West Virginia and Pennsylvania from incursions. This, with plans for keeping all the other armies of the Confederacy so occupied that Lee could not draw from them, const.i.tuted the grand strategy of the campaign.
The theatre of operations of the Army of the Potomac was a region of country lying west of a nearly north-and-south line pa.s.sing through Richmond and Was.h.i.+ngton. It was about 120 miles long, from the Potomac on the north to the James on the south, and from 30 to 60 miles wide, intersected by several rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay. The headquarters of the Union army were at Culpeper Court House, about 70 miles southwest of Was.h.i.+ngton, with which it was connected by railroad.
This was the starting point. Lee's army was about fifteen miles away, with the Rapidan, a river difficult of pa.s.sage, in front of it, the foothills of the Blue Ridge on its left, and on its right a densely wooded tract of scrub pines and various low growths, almost pathless, known as ”the Wilderness.”
Two courses were open to Grant,--to march by the right, cross the upper fords, and attack Lee on his left flank, or march by the left, crossing the lower fords, and making into the Wilderness. Grant chose the latter way, as, on the whole, most favorable to keeping open communications.