Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Volume Two

U >> Ulysses S. Grant >> Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Volume Two


On the 27th of February, more than a month after Canby had received his
orders, I again wrote to him, saying that I was extremely anxious to
hear of his being in Alabama. I notified him, also, that I had sent
Grierson to take command of his cavalry, he being a very efficient
officer. I further suggested that Forrest was probably in Mississippi,
and if he was there, he would find him an officer of great courage and
capacity whom it would be difficult to get by. I still further informed
him that Thomas had been ordered to start a cavalry force into
Mississippi on the 20th of February, or as soon as possible thereafter.
This force did not get off however.

All these movements were designed to be in support of Sherman's march,
the object being to keep the Confederate troops in the West from leaving
there. But neither Canby nor Thomas could be got off in time. I had
some time before depleted Thomas's army to reinforce Canby, for the
reason that Thomas had failed to start an expedition which he had been
ordered to send out, and to have the troops where they might do
something. Canby seemed to be equally deliberate in all of his
movements. I ordered him to go in person; but he prepared to send a
detachment under another officer. General Granger had got down to New
Orleans, in some way or other, and I wrote Canby that he must not put
him in command of troops. In spite of this he asked the War Department
to assign Granger to the command of a corps.

Almost in despair of having adequate service rendered to the cause in
that quarter, I said to Canby: "I am in receipt of a dispatch * * *
informing me that you have made requisitions for a construction corps
and material to build seventy miles of railroad. I have directed that
none be sent. Thomas's army has been depleted to send a force to you
that they might be where they could act in winter, and at least detain
the force the enemy had in the West. If there had been any idea of
repairing railroads, it could have been done much better from the North,
where we already had the troops. I expected your movements to be
co-operative with Sherman's last. This has now entirely failed. I
wrote to you long ago, urging you to push promptly and to live upon the
country, and destroy railroads, machine shops, etc., not to build them.
Take Mobile and hold it, and push your forces to the interior--to
Montgomery and to Selma. Destroy railroads, rolling stock, and
everything useful for carrying on war, and, when you have done this,
take such positions as can be supplied by water. By this means alone
you can occupy positions from which the enemy's roads in the interior
can be kept broken."

Most of these expeditions got off finally, but too late to render any
service in the direction for which they were designed.

The enemy, ready to intercept his advance, consisted of Hardee's troops
and Wheeler's cavalry, perhaps less than fifteen thousand men in all;
but frantic efforts were being made in Richmond, as I was sure would be
the case, to retard Sherman's movements. Everything possible was being
done to raise troops in the South. Lee dispatched against Sherman the
troops which had been sent to relieve Fort Fisher, which, including
those of the other defences of the harbor and its neighborhood,
amounted, after deducting the two thousand killed, wounded and captured,
to fourteen thousand men. After Thomas's victory at Nashville what
remained, of Hood's army were gathered together and forwarded as rapidly
as possible to the east to co-operate with these forces; and, finally,
General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the ablest commanders of the South
though not in favor with the administration (or at least with Mr.
Davis), was put in command of all the troops in North and South
Carolina.

Schofield arrived at Annapolis in the latter part of January, but before
sending his troops to North Carolina I went with him down the coast to
see the situation of affairs, as I could give fuller directions after
being on the ground than I could very well have given without. We soon
returned, and the troops were sent by sea to Cape Fear River. Both New
Bern and Wilmington are connected with Raleigh by railroads which unite
at Goldsboro. Schofield was to land troops at Smithville, near the
mouth of the Cape Fear River on the west side, and move up to secure the
Wilmington and Charlotteville Railroad. This column took their pontoon
bridges with them, to enable them to cross over to the island south of
the city of Wilmington. A large body was sent by the north side to
co-operate with them. They succeeded in taking the city on the 22d of
February. I took the precaution to provide for Sherman's army, in case
he should be forced to turn in toward the sea coast before reaching
North Carolina, by forwarding supplies to every place where he was
liable to have to make such a deflection from his projected march. I
also sent railroad rolling stock, of which we had a great abundance, now
that we were not operating the roads in Virginia. The gauge of the
North Carolina railroads being the same as the Virginia railroads had
been altered too; these cars and locomotives were ready for use there
without any change.

On the 31st of January I countermanded the orders given to Thomas to
move south to Alabama and Georgia. (I had previously reduced his force
by sending a portion of it to Terry.) I directed in lieu of this
movement, that he should send Stoneman through East Tennessee, and push
him well down toward Columbia, South Carolina, in support of Sherman.
Thomas did not get Stoneman off in time, but, on the contrary, when I
had supposed he was on his march in support of Sherman I heard of his
being in Louisville, Kentucky. I immediately changed the order, and
directed Thomas to send him toward Lynchburg. Finally, however, on the
12th of March, he did push down through the north-western end of South
Carolina, creating some consternation. I also ordered Thomas to send
the 4th corps (Stanley's) to Bull Gap and to destroy no more roads east
of that. I also directed him to concentrate supplies at Knoxville, with
a view to a probable movement of his army through that way toward
Lynchburg.

Goldsboro is four hundred and twenty-five miles from Savannah. Sherman's
march was without much incident until he entered Columbia, on the 17th
of February. He was detained in his progress by having to repair and
corduroy the roads, and rebuild the bridges. There was constant
skirmishing and fighting between the cavalry of the two armies, but this
did not retard the advance of the infantry. Four days, also, were lost
in making complete the destruction of the most important railroads south
of Columbia; there was also some delay caused by the high water, and the
destruction of the bridges on the line of the road. A formidable river
had to be crossed near Columbia, and that in the face of a small
garrison under General Wade Hampton. There was but little delay,
however, further than that caused by high water in the stream. Hampton
left as Sherman approached, and the city was found to be on fire.

There has since been a great deal of acrimony displayed in discussions
of the question as to who set Columbia on fire. Sherman denies it on the
part of his troops, and Hampton denies it on the part of the
Confederates. One thing is certain: as soon as our troops took
possession, they at once proceeded to extinguish the flames to the best
of their ability with the limited means at hand. In any case, the
example set by the Confederates in burning the village of Chambersburg,
Pa., a town which was not garrisoned, would seem to make a defence of
the act of firing the seat of government of the State most responsible
for the conflict then raging, not imperative.

The Confederate troops having vacated the city, the mayor took
possession, and sallied forth to meet the commander of the National
forces for the purpose of surrendering the town, making terms for the
protection of property, etc. Sherman paid no attention at all to the
overture, but pushed forward and took the town without making any
conditions whatever with its citizens. He then, however, co-operated
with the mayor in extinguishing the flames and providing for the people
who were rendered destitute by this destruction of their homes. When he
left there he even gave the mayor five hundred head of cattle to be
distributed among the citizens, to tide them over until some arrangement
could be made for their future supplies. He remained in Columbia until
the roads, public buildings, workshops and everything that could be
useful to the enemy were destroyed. While at Columbia, Sherman learned
for the first time that what remained of Hood's army was confronting
him, under the command of General Beauregard.

Charleston was evacuated on the 18th of February, and Foster garrisoned
the place. Wilmington was captured on the 22d. Columbia and Cheraw
farther north, were regarded as so secure from invasion that the wealthy
people of Charleston and Augusta had sent much of their valuable
property to these two points to be stored. Among the goods sent there
were valuable carpets, tons of old Madeira, silverware, and furniture.
I am afraid much of these goods fell into the hands of our troops.
There was found at Columbia a large amount of powder, some artillery,
small-arms and fixed ammunition. These, of course were among the
articles destroyed. While here, Sherman also learned of Johnston's
restoration to command. The latter was given, as already stated, all
troops in North and South Carolina. After the completion of the
destruction of public property about Columbia, Sherman proceeded on his
march and reached Cheraw without any special opposition and without
incident to relate. The railroads, of course, were thoroughly destroyed
on the way. Sherman remained a day or two at Cheraw; and, finally, on
the 6th of March crossed his troops over the Pedee and advanced straight
for Fayetteville. Hardee and Hampton were there, and barely escaped.
Sherman reached Fayetteville on the 11th of March. He had dispatched
scouts from Cheraw with letters to General Terry, at Wilmington, asking
him to send a steamer with some supplies of bread, clothing and other
articles which he enumerated. The scouts got through successfully, and
a boat was sent with the mail and such articles for which Sherman had
asked as were in store at Wilmington; unfortunately, however, those
stores did not contain clothing.

Four days later, on the 15th, Sherman left Fayetteville for Goldsboro.
The march, now, had to be made with great caution, for he was
approaching Lee's army and nearing the country that still remained open
to the enemy. Besides, he was confronting all that he had had to
confront in his previous march up to that point, reinforced by the
garrisons along the road and by what remained of Hood's army. Frantic
appeals were made to the people to come in voluntarily and swell the
ranks of our foe. I presume, however, that Johnston did not have in all
over 35,000 or 40,000 men. The people had grown tired of the war, and
desertions from the Confederate army were much more numerous than the
voluntary accessions.

There was some fighting at Averysboro on the 16th between Johnston's
troops and Sherman's, with some loss; and at Bentonville on the 19th and
21st of March, but Johnston withdrew from the contest before the morning
of the 22d. Sherman's loss in these last engagements in killed,
wounded, and missing, was about sixteen hundred. Sherman's troops at
last reached Goldsboro on the 23d of the month and went into bivouac;
and there his men were destined to have a long rest. Schofield was
there to meet him with the troops which had been sent to Wilmington.

Sherman was no longer in danger. He had Johnston confronting him; but
with an army much inferior to his own, both in numbers and morale. He
had Lee to the north of him with a force largely superior; but I was
holding Lee with a still greater force, and had he made his escape and
gotten down to reinforce Johnston, Sherman, with the reinforcements he
now had from Schofield and Terry, would have been able to hold the
Confederates at bay for an indefinite period. He was near the sea-shore
with his back to it, and our navy occupied the harbors. He had a
railroad to both Wilmington and New Bern, and his flanks were thoroughly
protected by streams, which intersect that part of the country and
deepen as they approach the sea. Then, too, Sherman knew that if Lee
should escape me I would be on his heels, and he and Johnson together
would be crushed in one blow if they attempted to make a stand. With
the loss of their capital, it is doubtful whether Lee's army would have
amounted to much as an army when it reached North Carolina. Johnston's
army was demoralized by constant defeat and would hardly have made an
offensive movement, even if they could have been induced to remain on
duty. The men of both Lee's and Johnston's armies were, like their
brethren of the North, as brave as men can be; but no man is so brave
that he may not meet such defeats and disasters as to discourage him and
dampen his ardor for any cause, no matter how just he deems it.



CHAPTER LXIII.

ARRIVAL OF THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS--LINCOLN AND THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS
--AN ANECDOTE OF LINCOLN--THE WINTER BEFORE PETERSBURG--SHERIDAN DESTROYS
THE RAILROAD--GORDON CARRIES THE PICKET LINE--PARKE RECAPTURES THE LINE
--THE LINE OF BATTLE OF WHITE OAK ROAD.

On the last of January, 1865, peace commissioners from the so-called
Confederate States presented themselves on our lines around Petersburg,
and were immediately conducted to my headquarters at City Point. They
proved to be Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy,
Judge Campbell, Assistant-Secretary of War, and R. M. T. Hunt, formerly
United States Senator and then a member of the Confederate Senate.

It was about dark when they reached my headquarters, and I at once
conducted them to the steam Mary Martin, a Hudson River boat which was
very comfortably fitted up for the use of passengers. I at once
communicated by telegraph with Washington and informed the Secretary of
War and the President of the arrival of these commissioners and that
their object was to negotiate terms of peace between he United States
and, as they termed it, the Confederate Government. I was instructed to
retain them at City Point, until the President, or some one whom he
would designate, should come to meet them. They remained several days
as guests on board the boat. I saw them quite frequently, though I have
no recollection of having had any conversation whatever with them on the
subject of their mission. It was something I had nothing to do with,
and I therefore did not wish to express any views on the subject. For
my own part I never had admitted, and never was ready to admit, that
they were the representatives of a GOVERNMENT. There had been too great
a waste of blood and treasure to concede anything of the kind. As long
as they remained there, however, our relations were pleasant and I found
them all very agreeable gentlemen. I directed the captain to furnish
them with the best the boat afforded, and to administer to their comfort
in every way possible. No guard was placed over them and no restriction
was put upon their movements; nor was there any pledge asked that they
would not abuse the privileges extended to them. They were permitted to
leave the boat when they felt like it, and did so, coming up on the bank
and visiting me at my headquarters.

I had never met either of these gentlemen before the war, but knew them
well by reputation and through their public services, and I had been a
particular admirer of Mr. Stephens. I had always supposed that he was a
very small man, but when I saw him in the dusk of the evening I was very
much surprised to find so large a man as he seemed to be. When he got
down on to the boat I found that he was wearing a coarse gray woollen
overcoat, a manufacture that had been introduced into the South during
the rebellion. The cloth was thicker than anything of the kind I had
ever seen, even in Canada. The overcoat extended nearly to his feet,
and was so large that it gave him the appearance of being an
average-sized man. He took this off when he reached the cabin of the
boat, and I was struck with the apparent change in size, in the coat and
out of it.

After a few days, about the 2d of February, I received a dispatch from
Washington, directing me to send the commissioners to Hampton Roads to
meet the President and a member of the cabinet. Mr. Lincoln met them
there and had an interview of short duration. It was not a great while
after they met that the President visited me at City Point. He spoke of
his having met the commissioners, and said he had told them that there
would be no use in entering into any negotiations unless they would
recognize, first: that the Union as a whole must be forever preserved,
and second: that slavery must be abolished. If they were willing to
concede these two points, then he was ready to enter into negotiations
and was almost willing to hand them a blank sheet of paper with his
signature attached for them to fill in the terms upon which they were
willing to live with us in the Union and be one people. He always
showed a generous and kindly spirit toward the Southern people, and I
never heard him abuse an enemy. Some of the cruel things said about
President Lincoln, particularly in the North, used to pierce him to the
heart; but never in my presence did he evince a revengeful disposition
and I saw a great deal of him at City Point, for he seemed glad to get
away from the cares and anxieties of the capital.

Right here I might relate an anecdote of Mr. Lincoln. It was on the
occasion of his visit to me just after he had talked with the peace
commissioners at Hampton Roads. After a little conversation, he asked
me if I had seen that overcoat of Stephens's. I replied that I had.
"Well," said he, "did you see him take it off?" I said yes. "Well,"
said he, "didn't you think it was the biggest shuck and the littlest ear
that ever you did see?" Long afterwards I told this story to the
Confederate General J. B. Gordon, at the time a member of the Senate.
He repeated it to Stephens, and, as I heard afterwards, Stephens laughed
immoderately at the simile of Mr. Lincoln.

The rest of the winter, after the departure of the peace commissioners,
passed off quietly and uneventfully, except for two or three little
incidents. On one occasion during this period, while I was visiting
Washington City for the purpose of conferring with the administration,
the enemy's cavalry under General Wade Hampton, passing our extreme left
and then going to the south, got in east of us. Before their presence
was known, they had driven off a large number of beef cattle that were
grazing in that section. It was a fair capture, and they were
sufficiently needed by the Confederates. It was only retaliating for
what we had done, sometimes for many weeks at a time, when out of
supplies taking what the Confederate army otherwise would have gotten.
As appears in this book, on one single occasion we captured five
thousand head of cattle which were crossing the Mississippi River near
Port Hudson on their way from Texas to supply the Confederate army in
the East.

One of the most anxious periods of my experience during the rebellion
was the last few weeks before Petersburg. I felt that the situation of
the Confederate army was such that they would try to make an escape at
the earliest practicable moment, and I was afraid, every morning, that I
would awake from my sleep to hear that Lee had gone, and that nothing
was left but a picket line. He had his railroad by the way of Danville
south, and I was afraid that he was running off his men and all stores
and ordnance except such as it would be necessary to carry with him for
his immediate defence. I knew he could move much more lightly and more
rapidly than I, and that, if he got the start, he would leave me behind
so that we would have the same army to fight again farther south and the
war might be prolonged another year.

I was led to this fear by the fact that I could not see how it was
possible for the Confederates to hold out much longer where they were.
There is no doubt that Richmond would have been evacuated much sooner
than it was, if it had not been that it was the capital of the so-called
Confederacy, and the fact of evacuating the capital would, of course,
have had a very demoralizing effect upon the Confederate army. When it
was evacuated (as we shall see further on), the Confederacy at once
began to crumble and fade away. Then, too, desertions were taking
place, not only among those who were with General Lee in the
neighborhood of their capital, but throughout the whole Confederacy. I
remember that in a conversation with me on one occasion long prior to
this, General Butler remarked that the Confederates would find great
difficulty in getting more men for their army; possibly adding, though I
am not certain as to this, "unless they should arm the slave."

The South, as we all knew, were conscripting every able-bodied man
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; and now they had passed a
law for the further conscription of boys from fourteen to eighteen,
calling them the junior reserves, and men from forty-five to sixty to be
called the senior reserves. The latter were to hold the necessary
points not in immediate danger, and especially those in the rear.
General Butler, in alluding to this conscription, remarked that they
were thus "robbing both the cradle and the grave," an expression which I
afterwards used in writing a letter to Mr. Washburn.

It was my belief that while the enemy could get no more recruits they
were losing at least a regiment a day, taking it throughout the entire
army, by desertions alone. Then by casualties of war, sickness, and
other natural causes, their losses were much heavier. It was a mere
question of arithmetic to calculate how long they could hold out while
that rate of depletion was going on. Of course long before their army
would be thus reduced to nothing the army which we had in the field
would have been able to capture theirs. Then too I knew from the great
number of desertions, that the men who had fought so bravely, so
gallantly and so long for the cause which they believed in--and as
earnestly, I take it, as our men believed in the cause for which they
were fighting--had lost hope and become despondent. Many of them were
making application to be sent North where they might get employment
until the war was over, when they could return to their Southern homes.

For these and other reasons I was naturally very impatient for the time
to come when I could commence the spring campaign, which I thoroughly
believed would close the war.

There were two considerations I had to observe, however, and which
detained me. One was the fact that the winter had been one of heavy
rains, and the roads were impassable for artillery and teams. It was
necessary to wait until they had dried sufficiently to enable us to move
the wagon trains and artillery necessary to the efficiency of an army
operating in the enemy's country. The other consideration was that
General Sheridan with the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac was
operating on the north side of the James River, having come down from
the Shenandoah. It was necessary that I should have his cavalry with me,
and I was therefore obliged to wait until he could join me south of the
James River.

Let us now take account of what he was doing.

On the 5th of March I had heard from Sheridan. He had met Early between
Staunton and Charlottesville and defeated him, capturing nearly his
entire command. Early and some of his officers escaped by finding
refuge in the neighboring houses or in the woods.

On the 12th I heard from him again. He had turned east, to come to
White House. He could not go to Lynchburg as ordered, because the rains
had been so very heavy and the streams were so very much swollen. He
had a pontoon train with him, but it would not reach half way across
some of the streams, at their then stage of water, which he would have
to get over in going south as first ordered.

I had supplies sent around to White House for him, and kept the depot
there open until he arrived. We had intended to abandon it because the
James River had now become our base of supplies.

Sheridan had about ten thousand cavalry with him, divided into two
divisions commanded respectively by Custer and Devin. General Merritt
was acting as chief of cavalry. Sheridan moved very light, carrying
only four days' provisions with him, with a larger supply of coffee,
salt and other small rations, and a very little else besides ammunition.
They stopped at Charlottesville and commenced tearing up the railroad
back toward Lynchburg. He also sent a division along the James River
Canal to destroy locks, culverts etc. All mills and factories along the
lines of march of his troops were destroyed also.