Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete
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.
Since the close of the war I have come to know Colonel Mosby personally,
and somewhat intimately. He is a different man entirely from what I had
supposed. He is slender, not tall, wiry, and looks as if he could
endure any amount of physical exercise. He is able, and thoroughly
honest and truthful. There were probably but few men in the South who
could have commanded successfully a separate detachment in the rear of
an opposing army, and so near the border of hostilities, as long as he
did without losing his entire command.
On this same visit to Washington I had my last interview with the
President before reaching the James River. He had of course become
acquainted with the fact that a general movement had been ordered all
along the line, and seemed to think it a new feature in war. I
explained to him that it was necessary to have a great number of troops
to guard and hold the territory we had captured, and to prevent
incursions into the Northern States. These troops could perform this
service just as well by advancing as by remaining still; and by
advancing they would compel the enemy to keep detachments to hold them
back, or else lay his own territory open to invasion. His answer was:
"Oh, yes! I see that. As we say out West, if a man can't skin he must
hold a leg while somebody else does."
There was a certain incident connected with the Wilderness campaign of
which it may not be out of place to speak; and to avoid a digression
further on I will mention it here.
A few days before my departure from Culpeper the Honorable E. B.
Washburne visited me there, and remained with my headquarters for some
distance south, through the battle in the Wilderness and, I think, to
Spottsylvania. He was accompanied by a Mr. Swinton, whom he presented as
a literary gentleman who wished to accompany the army with a view of
writing a history of the war when it was over. He assured me--and I
have no doubt Swinton gave him the assurance--that he was not present as
a correspondent of the press. I expressed an entire willingness to have
him (Swinton) accompany the army, and would have allowed him to do so as
a correspondent, restricted, however, in the character of the
information he could give. We received Richmond papers with about as
much regularity as if there had been no war, and knew that our papers
were received with equal regularity by the Confederates. It was
desirable, therefore, that correspondents should not be privileged spies
of the enemy within our lines.
Probably Mr. Swinton expected to be an invited guest at my headquarters,
and was disappointed that he was not asked to become so. At all events
he was not invited, and soon I found that he was corresponding with some
paper (I have now forgotten which one), thus violating his word either
expressed or implied. He knew of the assurance Washburne had given as
to the character of his mission. I never saw the man from the day of
our introduction to the present that I recollect. He accompanied us,
however, for a time at least.
The second night after crossing the Rapidan (the night of the 5th of
May) Colonel W. R. Rowley, of my staff, was acting as night officer at
my headquarters. A short time before midnight I gave him verbal
instructions for the night. Three days later I read in a Richmond paper
a verbatim report of these instructions.
A few nights still later (after the first, and possibly after the
second, day's fighting in the Wilderness) General Meade came to my tent
for consultation, bringing with him some of his staff officers. Both
his staff and mine retired to the camp-fire some yards in front of the
tent, thinking our conversation should be private. There was a stump a
little to one side, and between the front of the tent and camp-fire.
One of my staff, Colonel T. S. Bowers, saw what he took to be a man
seated on the ground and leaning against the stump, listening to the
conversation between Meade and myself. He called the attention of
Colonel Rowley to it. The latter immediately took the man by the
shoulder and asked him, in language more forcible than polite, what he
was doing there. The man proved to be Swinton, the "historian," and his
replies to the question were evasive and unsatisfactory, and he was
warned against further eaves-dropping.
The next I heard of Mr. Swinton was at Cold Harbor. General Meade came
to my headquarters saying that General Burnside had arrested Swinton,
who at some previous time had given great offence, and had ordered him
to be shot that afternoon. I promptly ordered the prisoner to be
released, but that he must be expelled from the lines of the army not to
return again on pain of punishment.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE GRAND CAMPAIGN--GENERAL BUTLER'S POSITION
--SHERIDAN'S FIRST RAID.
The armies were now all ready to move for the accomplishment of a single
object. They were acting as a unit so far as such a thing was possible
over such a vast field. Lee, with the capital of the Confederacy, was
the main end to which all were working. Johnston, with Atlanta, was an
important obstacle in the way of our accomplishing the result aimed at,
and was therefore almost an independent objective. It was of less
importance only because the capture of Johnston and his army would not
produce so immediate and decisive a result in closing the rebellion as
would the possession of Richmond, Lee and his army. All other troops
were employed exclusively in support of these two movements. This was
the plan; and I will now endeavor to give, as concisely as I can, the
method of its execution, outlining first the operations of minor
detached but co-operative columns.
As stated before, Banks failed to accomplish what he had been sent to do
on the Red River, and eliminated the use of forty thousand veterans
whose cooperation in the grand campaign had been expected--ten thousand
with Sherman and thirty thousand against Mobile.
Sigel's record is almost equally brief. He moved out, it is true,
according to programme; but just when I was hoping to hear of good work
being done in the valley I received instead the following announcement
from Halleck: "Sigel is in full retreat on Strasburg. He will do
nothing but run; never did anything else." The enemy had intercepted
him about New Market and handled him roughly, leaving him short six
guns, and some nine hundred men out of his six thousand.
The plan had been for an advance of Sigel's forces in two columns.
Though the one under his immediate command failed ingloriously the other
proved more fortunate. Under Crook and Averell his western column
advanced from the Gauley in West Virginia at the appointed time, and
with more happy results. They reached the Virginia and Tennessee
Railroad at Dublin and destroyed a depot of supplies, besides tearing up
several miles of road and burning the bridge over New River. Having
accomplished this they recrossed the Alleghanies to Meadow Bluffs and
there awaited further orders.
Butler embarked at Fort Monroe with all his command, except the cavalry
and some artillery which moved up the south bank of the James River.
His steamers moved first up Chesapeake Bay and York River as if
threatening the rear of Lee's army. At midnight they turned back, and
Butler by daylight was far up the James River. He seized City Point and
Bermuda Hundred early in the day, without loss and, no doubt, very much
to the surprise of the enemy.
This was the accomplishment of the first step contemplated in my
instructions to Butler. He was to act from here, looking to Richmond as
his objective point. I had given him to understand that I should aim to
fight Lee between the Rapidan and Richmond if he would stand; but should
Lee fall back into Richmond I would follow up and make a junction of the
armies of the Potomac and the James on the James River. He was directed
to secure a footing as far up the south side of the river as he could at
as early a date as possible.
Butler was in position by the 6th of May and had begun intrenching, and
on the 7th he sent out his cavalry from Suffolk to cut the Weldon
Railroad. He also sent out detachments to destroy the railroad between
Petersburg and Richmond, but no great success attended these latter
efforts. He made no great effort to establish himself on that road and
neglected to attack Petersburg, which was almost defenceless. About the
11th he advanced slowly until he reached the works at Drury's Bluff,
about half way between Bermuda Hundred and Richmond. In the mean time
Beauregard had been gathering reinforcements. On the 16th he attacked
Butler with great vigor, and with such success as to limit very
materially the further usefulness of the Army of the James as a distinct
factor in the campaign. I afterward ordered a portion of it to join the
Army of the Potomac, leaving a sufficient force with Butler to man his
works, hold securely the footing he had already gained and maintain a
threatening front toward the rear of the Confederate capital.
The position which General Butler had chosen between the two rivers, the
James and Appomattox, was one of great natural strength, one where a
large area of ground might be thoroughly inclosed by means of a single
intrenched line, and that a very short one in comparison with the extent
of territory which it thoroughly protected. His right was protected by
the James River, his left by the Appomattox, and his rear by their
junction--the two streams uniting near by. The bends of the two streams
shortened the line that had been chosen for intrenchments, while it
increased the area which the line inclosed.
Previous to ordering any troops from Butler I sent my chief engineer,
General Barnard, from the Army of the Potomac to that of the James to
inspect Butler's position and ascertain whether I could again safely
make an order for General Butler's movement in co-operation with mine,
now that I was getting so near Richmond; or, if I could not, whether his
position was strong enough to justify me in withdrawing some of his
troops and having them brought round by water to White House to join me