XXVIII

Grant Lieutenant-General--Interview with Lincoln--Grant Visits

Sherman--Plan of Campaigns--Lincoln to Grant--From the Wilderness to Cold

Harbor--The Move to City Point--Siege of Petersburg--Early Menaces

Washington--Lincoln under Fire--Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley

The army rank of lieutenant-general had, before the Civil War, been

conferred only twice on American commanders; on Washington, for service

in the War of Independence, and on Scott, for his conquest of Mexico. As

a reward for the victories of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga,

Congress passed, and the President signed in February, 1864, an act to

revive that grade. Calling Grant to Washington, the President met him

for the first time at a public reception at the Executive Mansion on

March 8, when the famous general was received with all the

manifestations of interest and enthusiasm possible in a social state

ceremonial. On the following day, at one o'clock, the general's formal

investiture with his new rank and authority took place in the presence

of Mr. Lincoln, the cabinet, and a few other officials.

"General Grant," said the President, "the nation's appreciation of what

you have done, and its reliance upon you for what remains to do in the

existing great struggle, are now presented, with this commission

constituting you Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States.

With this high honor devolves upon you, also, a corresponding

responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, 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's reply was modest and also very brief:

"Mr. President, I accept this commission with gratitude for the high

honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so

many fields 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 on 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."

In the informal conversation which followed, General Grant inquired what

special service was expected of him; to which the President replied that

the country wanted him to take Richmond; and being asked if he could do

so, replied that he could if he had the troops, which he was assured

would be furnished him. On the following day, Grant went to the Army of

the Potomac, where Meade received him with frank courtesy, generously

suggesting that he was ready to yield the command to any one Grant might

prefer. Grant, however, informed Meade that he desired to make no

change; and, returning to Washington, started west without a moment's

loss of time. On March 12, 1864, formal orders of the War Department

placed Grant in command of all the armies of the United States, while

Halleck, relieved from that duty, was retained at Washington as the

President's chief of staff.

Grant frankly confesses in his "Memoirs" that when he started east it

was with a firm determination to accept no appointment requiring him to

leave the West; but "when I got to Washington and saw the situation, it

was plain that here was the point for the commanding general to be." His

short visit had removed several false impressions, and future experience

was to cure him of many more.

When Grant again met Sherman in the West, he outlined to that general,

who had become his most intimate and trusted brother officer, the very

simple and definite military policy which was to be followed during the

year 1864. There were to be but two leading campaigns. Sherman, starting

from Chattanooga, full master of his own movements, was to lead the

combined western forces against the Confederate army under Johnston, the

successor of Bragg. Grant would personally conduct the campaign in the

East against Richmond, or rather against the rebel army under Lee. Meade

would be left in immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, to

execute the personal daily directions of Grant. The two Confederate

armies were eight hundred miles apart, and should either give way, it

was to be followed without halt or delay to battle or surrender, to

prevent its junction with the other. Scattered as a large portion of the

Union forces were in garrisons and detachments at widely separated

points, there were, of course, many details to be arranged, and a few

expeditions already in progress; but these were of minor importance, and

for contributory, rather than main objects, and need not here be

described.

Returning promptly to Washington, Grant established his headquarters

with the Army of the Potomac, at Culpepper, and for about a month

actively pushed his military preparations. He seems at first to have

been impressed with a dread that the President might wish to influence

or control his plans. But the few interviews between them removed the

suspicion which reckless newspaper accusation had raised; and all doubt

on this point vanished, when, on the last day of April, Mr. Lincoln sent

him the following explicit letter:

"Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish

to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up

to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I

neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and,

pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints

upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of

our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less

likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is

anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me

know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain

you."

Grant's immediate reply confessed the groundlessness of his

apprehensions:

"From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the

present day, I have never had cause of complaint--have never expressed

or implied a complaint against the administration, or the Secretary of

War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously

prosecuting what appeared to me my duty. Indeed, since the promotion

which placed me in command of all the armies, and in view of the great

responsibility and importance of success, I have been astonished at the

readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded, without even

an explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and

expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you."

The Union army under Grant, one hundred and twenty-two thousand strong,

on April 30, was encamped north of the Rapidan River. The Confederate

army under Lee, numbering sixty-two thousand, lay south of that stream.

Nearly three years before, these opposing armies had fought their first

battle of Bull Run, only a comparatively short distance north of where

they now confronted each other. Campaign and battle between them had

surged far to the north and to the south, but neither could as yet claim

over the other any considerable gain of ground or of final advantage in

the conflict. Broadly speaking, relative advance and retreat, as well as

relative loss and gain of battle-fields substantially balanced each

other. Severe as had been their struggles in the past, a more arduous

trial of strength was before them. Grant had two to one in numbers; Lee

the advantage of a defensive campaign. He could retire toward cumulative

reserves, and into prepared fortifications; knew almost by heart every

road, hill, and forest of Virginia; had for his friendly scout every

white inhabitant. Perhaps his greatest element of strength lay in the

conscious pride of the Confederate army that through all fluctuations of

success and failure, it had for three years effectually barred the way

of the Army of the Potomac to Richmond. But to offset this there now

menaced it what was before absent in every encounter, the grim,

unflinching will of the new Union commander.

General Grant devised no plan of complicated strategy for the problem

before him, but proposed to solve it by plain, hard, persistent

fighting. He would endeavor to crush the army of Lee before it could

reach Richmond or unite with the army of Johnston; or, failing in that,

he would shut it up in that stronghold and reduce it by a siege. With

this in view, he instructed Meade at the very outset: "Lee's army will

be your objective point. Where Lee goes, there you will go, also."

Everything being ready, on the night of May 4, Meade threw five bridges

across the Rapidan, and before the following night the whole Union army,

with its trains, was across the stream moving southward by the left

flank, past the right flank of the Confederates.

Sudden as was the advance, it did not escape the vigilant observation of

Lee, who instantly threw his force against the flanks of the Union

columns, and for two days there raged in that difficult, broken, and

tangled region known as the Wilderness, a furious battle of detachments

along a line five miles in length. Thickets, swamps, and ravines,

rendered intelligent direction and concerted manoeuvering impossible,

and furious and bloody as was the conflict, its results were indecisive.

No enemy appearing on the seventh, Grant boldly started to Spottsylvania

Court House, only, however, to find the Confederates ahead of him; and

on the eighth and ninth these turned their position, already strong by

nature, into an impregnable intrenched camp. Grant assaulted their works

on the tenth, fiercely, but unsuccessfully. There followed one day of

inactivity, during which Grant wrote his report, only claiming that

after six days of hard fighting and heavy losses "the result up to this

time is much in our favor"; but expressing, in the phrase which

immediately became celebrated, his firm resolution to "fight it out on

this line if it takes all summer."

On May 12, 1864, Grant ordered a yet more determined attack, in which,

with fearful carnage on both sides, the Union forces finally stormed the

earthworks which have become known as the "bloody angle." But finding

that other and more formidable intrenchments still resisted his entrance

to the Confederate camp, Grant once more moved by the left flank past

his enemy toward Richmond. Lee followed with equal swiftness along the

interior lines. Days passed in an intermitting, and about equally

matched contest of strategy and fighting. The difference was that Grant

was always advancing and Lee always retiring. On May 26, Grant reported

to Washington:

"Lee's army is really whipped. The prisoners we now take show it, and

the action of his army shows it unmistakably. A battle with them outside

of intrenchments cannot be had. Our men feel that they have gained the

_morale_ over the enemy, and attack him with confidence. I may be

mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already

assured."

That same night, Grant's advance crossed the Pamunkey River at Hanover

Town, and during another week, with a succession of marching, flanking,

and fighting. Grant pushed the Union army forward to Cold Harbor. Here

Lee's intrenched army was again between him and Richmond, and on June 3,

Grant ordered another determined attack in front, to break through that

constantly resisting barrier. But a disastrous repulse was the

consequence. Its effect upon the campaign is best given in Grant's own

letter, written to Washington on June 5:

"My idea from the start has been to beat Lee's army, if possible, north

of Richmond; then, after destroying his lines of communication on the

north side of the James River, to transfer the army to the south side

and besiege Lee in Richmond, or follow him south if he should retreat. I

now find, after over thirty days of trial, the enemy deems it of the

first importance to run no risks with the armies they now have. They act

purely on the defensive behind breastworks, or feebly on the offensive

immediately in front of them, and where, in case of repulse, they can

instantly retire behind them. Without a greater sacrifice of human life

than I am willing to make, all cannot be accomplished that I had

designed outside of the city."

During the week succeeding the severe repulse at Cold Harbor, which

closed what may be summed up as Grant's campaign against Richmond, he

made his preparations to enter upon the second element of his general

plan, which may be most distinctively denominated the siege of

Petersburg, though, in fuller phraseology, it might be called the siege

of Petersburg and Richmond combined. But the amplification is not

essential; for though the operation and the siege-works embraced both

cities, Petersburg was the vital and vulnerable point. When Petersburg

fell, Richmond fell of necessity. The reason was, that Lee's army,

inclosed within the combined fortifications, could only be fed by the

use of three railroads centering at Petersburg; one from the southeast,

one from the south, and one with general access from the southwest.

Between these, two plank roads added a partial means of supply. Thus

far, Grant's active campaign, though failing to destroy Lee's army, had

nevertheless driven it into Richmond, and obviously his next step was

either to dislodge it, or compel it to surrender.

Cold Harbor was about ten miles from Richmond, and that city was

inclosed on the Washington side by two circles of fortifications devised

with the best engineering skill. On June 13, Grant threw forward an army

corps across the Chickahominy, deceiving Lee into the belief that he was

making a real direct advance upon the city; and so skilfully concealed

his intention that by midnight of the sixteenth he had moved the whole

Union army with its artillery and trains about twenty miles directly

south and across the James River, on a pontoon bridge over two thousand

feet long, to City Point. General Butler, with an expedition from

Fortress Monroe, moving early in May, had been ordered to capture

Petersburg; and though he failed in this, he had nevertheless seized and

held City Point, and Grant thus effected an immediate junction with

Butler's force of thirty-two thousand. Butler's second attempt to seize

Petersburg while Grant was marching to join him also failed, and Grant,

unwilling to make any needless sacrifice, now limited his operations to

the processes of a regular siege.

This involved a complete change of method. The campaign against

Richmond, from the crossing of the Rapidan and battle of the Wilderness,

to Cold Harbor, and the change of base to City Point, occupied a period

of about six weeks of almost constant swift marching and hard fighting.

The siege of Petersburg was destined to involve more than nine months of

mingled engineering and fighting. The Confederate army forming the

combined garrisons of Richmond and Petersburg numbered about seventy

thousand. The army under Grant, though in its six weeks' campaign it had

lost over sixty thousand in killed, wounded, and missing, was again

raised by the reinforcements sent to it, and by its junction with

Butler, to a total of about one hundred and fifty thousand. With this

superiority of numbers, Grant pursued the policy of alternately

threatening the defenses of Lee, sometimes south, sometimes north of the

James River, and at every favorable opportunity pushing his siege-works

westward in order to gradually gain and command the three railroads and

two plank roads that brought the bulk of absolutely necessary food and

supplies to the Confederate armies and the inhabitants of Petersburg and

Richmond. It is estimated that this gradual westward extension of

Grant's lines, redoubts, and trenches, when added to those threatening

Richmond and Petersburg on the east, finally reached a total development

of about forty miles. The catastrophe came when Lee's army grew

insufficient to man his defensive line along this entire length, and

Grant, finding the weakened places, eventually broke through it,

compelling the Confederate general and army to evacuate and abandon both

cities and seek safety in flight.

The central military drama, the first two distinctive acts of which are

outlined above, had during this long period a running accompaniment of

constant under-plot and shifting and exciting episodes. The Shenandoah

River, rising northwest of Richmond, but flowing in a general northeast

course to join the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, gives its name to a valley

twenty to thirty miles wide, highly fertile and cultivated, and having

throughout its length a fine turnpike, which in ante-railroad days was

an active commercial highway between North and South. Bordered on the

west by the rugged Alleghany Mountains, and on the east by the single

outlying range called the Blue Ridge, it formed a protected military

lane or avenue, having vital relation to the strategy of campaigns on

the open Atlantic slopes of central Virginia. The Shenandoah valley had

thus played a not unimportant part in almost every military operation of

the war, from the first battle of Bull Run to the final defense of

Richmond.

The plans of General Grant did not neglect so essential a feature of his

task. While he was fighting his way toward the Confederate capital, his

instructions contemplated the possession and occupation of the

Shenandoah valley as part of the system which should isolate and

eventually besiege Richmond. But this part of his plan underwent many

fluctuations. He had scarcely reached City Point when he became aware

that General Lee, equally alive to the advantages of the Shenandoah

valley, had dispatched General Early with seventeen thousand men on a

flying expedition up that convenient natural sally-port, which was for

the moment undefended.

Early made such speed that he crossed the Potomac during the first week

of July, made a devastating raid through Maryland and southern

Pennsylvania, threatened Baltimore, and turning sharply to the south,

was, on the eleventh of the month, actually at the outskirts of

Washington city, meditating its assault and capture. Only the opportune

arrival of the Sixth Army Corps under General Wright, on the afternoon

of that day, sent hurriedly by Grant from City Point, saved the Federal

capital from occupation and perhaps destruction by the enemy.

Certain writers have represented the government as panic-stricken during

the two days that this menace lasted; but neither Mr. Lincoln, nor

Secretary Stanton, nor General Halleck, whom it has been even more the

fashion to abuse, lacked coolness or energy in the emergency. Indeed,

the President's personal unconcern was such as to give his associates

much uneasiness. On the tenth, he rode out as was his usual custom

during the summer months, to spend the night at the Soldiers' Home, in

the suburbs; but Secretary Stanton, learning that Early was advancing in

heavy force, sent after him to compel his return to the city; and twice

afterward, intent on watching the fighting which took place near Fort

Stevens, he exposed his tall form to the gaze and bullets of the enemy

in a manner to call forth earnest remonstrance from those near him.

The succeeding military events in the Shenandoah valley must here be

summed up in the brief statement that General Sheridan, being placed in

command of the Middle Military Division and given an army of thirty or

forty thousand men, finally drove back the Confederate detachments upon

Richmond, in a series of brilliant victories, and so devastated the

southern end of the valley as to render it untenable for either army;

and by the destruction of the James River Canal and the Virginia Central

Railroad, succeeded in practically carrying out Grant's intention of

effectually closing the avenue of supplies to Richmond from the

northwest.