U. S. Grant,
Plans for the 1864 Campaign
The Union armies were now divided into nineteen
departments, though four of them in the West had been concentrated into a
single military division. The Army of the Potomac was a
separate command and had no territorial limits. There were
thus seventeen distinct commanders. Before this time these
various armies had acted separately and independently of each other,
giving the enemy an opportunity often of depleting one command, not
pressed, to reinforce another more actively engaged. I
determined to stop this. To this end I regarded the Army of
the Potomac as the centre, and all west to Memphis along the line
described as our position at the time, and north of it, [as] the right
wing; the Army of the James, under General [Benjamin] Butler, as the
left wing, and all the troops south, as a force in rear of the
enemy. Some of these latter were occupying positions from
which they could not render service proportionate to their numerical
strength. All such were depleted to the minimum necessary to
hold their positions as a guard against blockade runners; where they
could not do this their positions were abandoned altogether.
In this way ten thousand men were added to the Army of the James from
South Carolina alone, with General [Quincy A.] Gillmore in
command. It was not contemplated that General Gillmore should
leave his department; but as most of his troops were taken,
presumably for active service, he asked to accompany them and was
permitted to do so. Officers and soldiers on furlough, of whom
there were many thousands, were ordered to their proper commands;
concentration was the order of the day, and to have it accomplished in
time to advance at the earliest moment the roads would permit was the
problem.
As a reinforcement to the Army of the Potomac, or
to act in support of it, the 9th army corps, over twenty thousand strong,
under General Burnside, had been rendezvoused at Annapolis,
Maryland. This was an admirable position for such a
reinforcement. The corps could be brought at the last moment
as a reinforcement to the Army of the Potomac, or it could be thrown on
the sea-coast, south of Norfolk, in Virginia or North Carolina, to operate
against Richmond from that direction. In fact Burnside and the
War Department both thought the 9th corps was intended for such an
expedition up to the last moment.
My general plan now was to concentrate all the
force possible against the Confederate armies in the field.
There were but two such, as we have seen, east of the Mississippi River
and facing north. The Army of Northern Virginia, General
Robert E. Lee commanding, was on the south bank of the Rapidan,
confronting the Army of the Potomac; the second, under General
Joseph E. Johnston, was at Dalton, Georgia, opposed to Sherman who was
still at Chattanooga. Beside these main armies the
Confederates had to guard the Shenandoah Valley, a great storehouse to
feed their armies from, and their line of communications from Richmond to
Tennessee. [Nathan Bedford] Forrest, a brave and intrepid
cavalry general, was in the West with a large force; making a larger
command necessary to hold what we had gained in Middle and West
Tennessee. We could not abandon any territory north of the
line held by the enemy because it would lay the Northern States open to
invasion. But as the Army of the Potomac was the principal
garrison for the protection of Washington even while it was moving on Lee,
so all the forces to the west, and the Army of the James, guarded their
special trusts when advancing from them as well as when remaining at
them. Better indeed, for they forced the enemy to guard his
own lines and resources at a greater distance from ours, and with a
greater force. Little expeditions could not so well be sent
out to destroy a bridge or tear up a few miles of railroad track, burn a
storehouse, or inflict other little annoyances. Accordingly I
arranged for a simultaneous movement all along the line.
Sherman was to move from Chattanooga, Johnston's army and Atlanta being
his objective points. [George] Crook, commanding in West
Virginia, was to move from the mouth of the Gauley River with a cavalry
force and some artillery, the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to be his
objective. Either the enemy would have to keep a large force
to protect their communications, or see them destroyed and a large amount
of forage and provisions, which they so much needed, fall into our
hands. [Franz] Sigel was in command in the Valley of
Virginia. He was to advance [southwest] up the valley,
covering the North from an invasion through that channel as well while
advancing as by remaining near Harpers Ferry. Every mile he
advanced also gave us possession of stores on which Lee
relied. Butler was to advance by the James River, having
Richmond and Petersburg as his objective....
[Nathaniel P.] Banks in the Department of the Gulf
was ordered to assemble all the troops he had at New Orleans in time to
join in the general move, Mobile to be his objective.
At this time I was not entirely decided as to
whether I should move the Army of the Potomac by the right flank of the
enemy, or by his left. Each plan presented
advantages. If by his right -- my left -- the Potomac,
Chesapeake Bay and tributaries would furnish us an easy line over which to
bring all supplies to within easy hauling distance of every position the
army could occupy from the Rapidan to the James River. But Lee
could, if he chose, detach or move his whole army north on a line rather
interior to the one I would have to take in following. A
movement by his left -- our right -- would obviate this; but all that was
done would have to be done with the supplies and ammunition we started
with. All idea of adopting this latter plan was abandoned when
the limited quantity of supplies possible to take with us was
considered. The country over which we would have to pass was
so exhausted of all food and forage that we would be obliged to carry
everything with us....
By the 27th of April spring had so far advanced at
to justify me in fixing a day for the great move. On that day
Burnside left Annapolis to occupy Meade's position between Bull Run and
the Rappahannock. Meade was notified and directed to bring his
troops forward to his advance. On the following day Butler was
notified of my intended advance on the 4th of May, and he was directed to
move the night of the same day and get as far up the James River as
possible by daylight, and push on from there to accomplish the task given
him. He was also notified that reinforcements were being
collected in Washington City, which would be forwarded to him should the
enemy fall back into the trenches at Richmond. The same day
Sherman was directed to get his forces up ready to advance on the
5th. Sigel was in Winchester and was notified to move in
conjunction with the others.
The criticism has been made by writers on the [Army
of the Potomac's] campaign from the Rapidan to the James River that all
the loss of life could have been obviated by moving the army there on
transports. [But] Richmond was fortified and intrenched [sic]
so perfectly that one man inside to defend was more than equal to five
outside besieging or assaulting. To get possession of 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....
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, . . . 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."
SOURCE: U. S. Grant, Personal
Memoirs of U. S. Grant (New York, 1885), pages 364-367, 368-370,
371-372, 372-373.
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