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, reestablishing 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington, 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 Washington, 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 shine 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 Washington"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, Washington, 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 Shiloh 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 Washington, 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 establishing 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 Washington. 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 Washington, 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.
For General Grant, as commander of all the armies, was bound to avoid being shut up or leaving Washington imperiled. And it may properly be said here that his plan contemplated leaving General Meade free in his tactics, giving him only general directions regarding what he desired to have accomplished, the actual fighting to be done under Meade"s orders.
The official reports to the Adjutant-General"s office in Washington show that on the 20th of April the Army of the Potomac numbered 81,864 men present and fit for duty. Burnside"s corps, which joined in the Wilderness, added to this force 19,250 men, making a total of 101,114 men. After the Wilderness, a division numbering 7000 or 8000 men under General Tyler joined it. When the Chickahominy was reached, a junction with Butler"s army, 25,000 strong, was made. Lee had on the 20th of April present for duty, armed and equipped, 53,891. A few days later he was reinforced by Longstreet"s corps, which on the date given numbered 18,387, making a total of 72,278. Grant"s army outnumbered Lee"s, but he was to make an offensive campaign in the enemy"s country, operating on exterior lines, and keeping long lines of communication open. Defending Richmond and Petersburg there were other Confederate forces, under Beauregard, Hill, and Hoke, estimated to amount to nearly 30,000 men, and Breckenridge commanded still another army in the Shenandoah Valley.
In Grant"s command, but not of the Army of the Potomac, were the garrison of Washington and the force in West Virginia.
On the 3d of May the order to move was given, and at midnight the start was made. The advance guard crossed the river before four in the morning of the 4th, and on the morning of the 5th Grant"s army, nearly a hundred thousand strong, was disposed in the Wilderness. Lee had discovered the movement promptly, and had moved his whole army to the right, determined to fall upon Grant in that unfavorable place. As soon as the Union army began a movement in the morning, it encountered the enemy, who attacked with tremendous and confident vigor. The fighting continued all day, with indecisive results. Early the next morning the battle was renewed, and continued with varying fortunes, at one time one army, and at another time the opposing army, having the advantage. There was, in fact, a series of desperate battles between different portions of the two armies which did not end until the night was far advanced. The advantage, on the whole, was with the Union army. It had not been forced back over the Rapidan. It stood fast. But it had inflicted no such defeat on the enemy as Grant had hoped to do in the first encounter. The losses of both sides had been very large, those of the Union Army being 3288 killed, 19,278 wounded, 6784 missing.
The next morning it was discovered that the Confederates had retired to their intrenchments, and were not seeking battle. Then Grant gave the order that was decisive, and revealed to the Army of the Potomac that it had a new spirit over it. The order was, "Forward to Spottsylvania!" No more turning back, no more resting on a doubtful result. "Forward!" to the finish. But Lee, controlling shorter lines, was at Spottsylvania beforehand, and had seized the roads and fortified himself. Here again was b.l.o.o.d.y fighting of a most determined character, lasting several days. Here Hanc.o.c.k, by a daring a.s.sault, captured an angle of the enemy"s works, with a large number of guns and prisoners; and it was held, despite the repeated endeavors of the enemy to recapture it. Here General Sedgwick was killed. Here Upton made a famous a.s.sault on the enemy"s line and broke through it, want of timely and vigorous support preventing this exploit from making an end of Lee"s army then and there.
But the Union losses at Spottsylvania, while not so large as in the Wilderness, were very heavy, and made a painful impression upon the people of the North.
Undoubtedly Grant was disappointed by the failure to vanquish his opponent. Undoubtedly Lee was disappointed by his failure to repulse the Union army in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania as he had done formerly at Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, when it had come into the same territory. Each had underestimated the other"s quality. From Spottsylvania, on the 11th of May, after six days of continuous fighting, with an advance of scarcely a dozen miles, and an experience of checks and losses that would have disheartened any one but the hero of Vicksburg, he sent this bulletin to the War Department: "We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The result to this time is much in our favor. But our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy. We have lost to this time 11 general officers killed, wounded, and missing, and probably 20,000 men.... I am now sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
The indomitable spirit of the last sentence electrified the country. It did take all summer, and all winter, too,--eleven full months from the date of this dispatch, and more, before General Lee, driven into Richmond, forced to evacuate the doomed city, his escape into the South cut off, his soldiers exhausted, ragged, starving, reinforcements out of the question, surrendered at Appomattox the Army of Northern Virginia, the reliance of the Confederacy, to the general whom he expected to defeat by his furious a.s.sault in the Wilderness.
CHAPTER XIV
FROM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND
The story of this campaign is too long to be narrated in particular. On both sides it is a record of magnificent valor, endurance, and resolution, to which the world affords no parallel, when it is remembered that the armies were recruited from the free citizenship of the nation. As the weeks and months wore on, General"s Grant"s visage, it is said, settled into an unrelaxing expression of grim resolve. He carried the nation on his shoulders in those days. If he had wearied or yielded, hope might have vanished. He did not yield nor faint. He planned and toiled and fought, keeping his own counsel, bearing patiently the disappointment, the misunderstanding, the doubt, the criticism, the woe of millions who had no other hope but in his success and were often on the verge of despair. He beheld his plans defeated by the incompetence or errors of subordinates whom he trusted, and let the blame be laid upon himself without protest or murmuring. He knew better than any one else the terrible cost of life which his unrelenting purpose demanded; but he knew also that the price of relenting, involving the discouragement of failure, the cost of another campaign after the enemy had got breath and new equipment, the possible refusal of the North to try again, was far greater and more humiliating. Little wonder that he was oppressed and silent and moody. Yet he ruled his own spirit in accordance with the habit of his life. No folly or disappointment provoked him to utter an oath. General Horace Porter, of his staff, a member of his intimate military family, says that the strongest expression of vexation that ever escaped his lips was: "Confound it!" He alone had the genius to be master of the situation at all times, and the "simple faith in success" that would not let him be swerved from his aim.
So he pressed on from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania, to North Anna, to South Anna, to the Pamunky, to Cold Harbor, to the Chickahominy, fighting and flanking all the way, until at the end of the month he had pressed Lee back to the immediate vicinity of Richmond. The bloodiest of all these battles was the ill-judged attack, for which Grant has been much criticised, on the strongly intrenched rebel lines at Cold Harbor.
If he could have dislodged Lee here he could have compelled him to retreat into the immediate fortifications of Richmond. But Lee"s position was impregnable: the a.s.sault failed. In less than an hour Grant lost 13,000 men killed, wounded, and missing, and gained nothing substantial.
General Butler had signally failed to accomplish the work given him to do. Instead of taking Petersburg, destroying the railroads connecting Richmond with the south, and laying siege to that city, he had, after some ineffectual manoeuvring, got his army hemmed in, "bottled up,"
Grant called it, at Bermuda Hundred, where he was almost completely out of the offensive movement for months. Sigel had been worsted in the North, and had been relieved by Hunter, who had won measurable success in the Shenandoah Valley.
Grant, checked on the east and north of Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy and the James with his whole army by a series of masterly manoeuvres, regarding the meaning of which his opponent was brilliantly deceived. Then followed the unsuccessful attempt to capture Petersburg before it could be reinforced, unsuccessful by reason of the want of persistence on the part of the general intrusted with the duty. This failure involved a long siege of that place, which the Confederates made impregnable to a.s.sault. A breach in the defences was made by the explosion of a mine constructed with vast labor, but there was failure to follow up the advantage with sufficient promptness. Here the Army of the Potomac pa.s.sed the winter, except the part of the army that was detached to protect Washington from threatened attack, and with which Sheridan made his great fame in the Shenandoah Valley. Meanwhile Sherman, in the West, had taken Atlanta, and leaving Hood"s army to be taken care of by Thomas, who defeated it at Nashville, had marched across Georgia, and was making his way through the Carolinas northward toward Richmond, an army under Johnston disputing his way by annoyance, impediment, and occasional battle. Another incident of the winter was the two attempts on Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina,--the first, under General Butler, a failure; the second, under General Terry, a brilliant success. All these movements were in execution of plans and directions given by the lieutenant-general.
It was the 29th of March when, all preparations having been made, Grant began the final movement. He threw a large part of his army into the region west of Petersburg and south of Richmond, and at Five Forks, four days later, Sheridan fought a brilliant and decisive battle, which compelled Lee to abandon both Petersburg and Richmond, and to attempt to save his army by running away and joining Johnston. All his movements were baffled by the eager Union generals, flushed with the consciousness that the end was near.
On the 7th of April Grant wrote to Lee: "I regard it as my duty to shift from myself responsibility for any further effusion of human blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army, known as the Army of Northern Virginia." Lee replied at once, asking the terms that would be offered on condition of surrender. His letter reached Grant on the 8th, who replied: "_Peace_ being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the government of the United States until properly exchanged." He offered to meet Lee or any officers deputed by him for arranging definite terms. Lee replied the same evening somewhat evasively, setting forth that he desired to treat for peace, and that the surrender of his army would be considered as a means to that end.
To this Grant responded on the 9th, having set his army in motion to Appomattox Court House, that he had no authority to treat for peace; but added some plain words to the effect that the shortest road to peace would be surrender. Lee immediately asked for an interview. Grant received this communication while on the road, and returned word that he would push on and meet him wherever he might designate. When Grant arrived at the village of Appomattox Court House he was directed to a small house where Lee awaited him. Within a short time the conditions were drafted by Grant and accepted by Lee, who was grateful that the officers were permitted to keep their side-arms, and officers and men to retain the horses which they owned and their private baggage.
The number of men surrendered at Appomattox was 27,416. During the ten days" previous fighting 22,079 of Lee"s army had been captured, and about 12,000 killed and wounded. It is estimated that as many as 12,000 deserted on the road to Appomattox. From May 1, 1864, to April 9, 1865, the Armies of the Potomac and the James took 66,512 prisoners and captured 245 flags, 251 guns, and 22,633 stands of small arms. Their losses from the Wilderness to Appomattox were 12,561 killed, 64,452 wounded, and 26,988 missing, an aggregate of 104,001.
It would be idle adulation to say that in all points during this long conflict with Lee General Grant always did the best thing, making no mistakes. The essential point is, and it suffices to establish, his military fame on secure foundations, that he made no fatal mistake, that progress toward the great result in view was constant, slower than he expected, slower than the country expected, but finally everywhere victorious, substantially on the lines contemplated in the beginning.
After Lee"s experience in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania he seldom a.s.sumed the offensive against Grant. He became prudent, adopted a defensive policy, fought behind intrenchments or just in front of fortifications to which he could retire for safety, and waited to be attacked. Watchful and alert as he was, he was deceived by Grant oftener than he deceived him, and except that he managed to postpone the end by skillful tactics, he did not challenge the military superiority of his foe. He made Grant"s victory costly and difficult, but he did not prevent it. He retreated with desperate reluctance, but he was forced back. He could not protect his capital; he could not save his army. When Lee measured powers with Grant, his cause was lost.
There are incidents of the campaign that mitigate its stern and in some sense savage features. When the imperturbable soldier learned of the death of his dear friend McPherson, who fell in one of Sherman"s battles, he retired to his tent and wept bitterly. When Lincoln, visiting Grant at City Point, before the general departed on what was expected to be the last stage of the campaign, said to him that he had expected he would order Sherman"s army to reinforce the Army of the Potomac for the final struggle, the reply was that the Army of the Potomac had fought the Army of Virginia through four long years, and it would not be just to require it to share the honors of victory with any other army. It was observed that when he bade good-by to his wife at this departure his adieus, always affectionate, were especially tender and lingering, as if presentiment of a crisis in his life oppressed him.
Lincoln accompanied him to the train. "The President," said Grant, after they had parted, "is one of the few who have not attempted to extract from me a knowledge of my movements, although he is the only one who has a right to know them." Long before, Lincoln had written to him: "The particulars of your campaign I neither know nor seek to know. I wish not to intrude any restraints or constraints upon you." Grant"s reply to this confidence was: "Should my success be less than I desire or expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not yours." These two understood each other by a magnanimous sympathy that had no need of particular confidences. That Lincoln respected Grant as one whom it was not becoming for him to presume to question is in itself impressive evidence of Grant"s greatness.