Tell the young women to send me all their beaux. I want them at once.
—ROBERT E. LEE, September 18, 1864
I would give a sentiment, but just now I am not in a sentimental mood.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN, MAY 7, 1864
WHEN GRANT FIRST MET LINCOLN alone, the president told him that he had never wanted to interfere in military matters, but the lack of activity on the part of Union commanders had combined with public pressure to make intervention necessary. Lincoln also told him he didn’t want to know the general’s intentions, then proceeded to pull out a well-marked map and suggest a campaign plan for Virginia. “He pointed out on the map two streams which empty into the Potomac,” Grant recalled, “and suggested that the army might be moved on boats and landed between the mouths of these two streams. We would then have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and the tributaries would protect our flanks while we moved out… . I listened respectfully,” Grant wrote, “but did not suggest that the same streams would protect Lee’s flanks while he was shutting us up.”1 Grant had a plan of his own.
LIKE MCCLELLAN AND LINCOLN, Grant came early to an understanding of the necessity and the advantage of Union armies working together against the Confederate forces. He characterized the operations of the eastern and western Union armies as the efforts of a “balky team, no two ever pulling together,” with the result that it allowed the enemy to take advantage of his interior lines to move troops, furlough them, or allow them to work “producing for the support of their armies.” He was also convinced that there would be no lasting peace “until the military power of the rebellion was entirely broken.” On March 15 he wrote Banks that it was critical that “all the armies act as much in concert as possible.” “I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy,” Grant wrote after the war, “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 section of our common country to the constitution and laws of the land. These views have been kept constantly in mind, and orders given and campaigns made to carry them out.”2 Here Grant laid out his strategy for winning the war and delivering the Union political objective: use offensive action to pin the enemy, kill his armies, and destroy his resources, eliminating his ability to prosecute the war.
To accomplish this Grant developed a plan for an offensive composed of multiple and simultaneously moving prongs intended to nullify the Confederate ability to use their interior lines to mass against an individual Union thrust. “It is my design,” he told Sherman, “if the enemy keep quiet and allow me to take the initiative in the spring campaign, to work all parts of the army together and somewhat toward a common center.” Grant wanted General Nathaniel Banks to quickly finish his ongoing operation against Shreveport, Louisiana, and move against Mobile. He was to strengthen his forces by abandoning Texas, except for a garrison at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and strip his other posts to gather an army of at least 25,000. Admiral Farragut was to assist him with a fleet. If Banks could not do this quickly, he was to abandon the operation.3
Grant instructed Major General Benjamin Butler to land his forces on the Virginia coast south of the James River, then aim at Richmond, cooperating with the advance of the Army of the Potomac and, if possible, cutting the Confederate railroads near Hicksford. Grant needed naval cooperation for this move.4
Grant planned to be with the Army of Potomac, though Meade technically remained its operational commander. He designated Lee’s army as this force’s “objective point,” telling Meade “that wherever Lee went he would go also.”5 Grant intended for Meade’s army to fight Lee between the two capitals, but if Lee fell back to Richmond, Grant would form a juncture with Butler’s force, the two of them then drawing their supplies from a base on the James River. As McClellan did before him, Grant ordered pre-campaign preparations in case he had to lay siege to Richmond.6
He ordered Major General Franz Sigel to move up the Shenandoah Valley with orders to “occupy the attention of a large force, and thereby hold them from re-enforcing elsewhere, or … inflict a blow upon the enemy’s resources, which will materially aid us.” His men were also to destroy the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad.7
He told Sherman to move against Johnston’s army and get as deeply into Southern territory as possible, wreaking as much havoc on their resources as he could. Moreover, Sherman was to keep the enemy from shifting troops to Lee while Grant endeavored to perform the same service for Sherman by keeping Confederate forces in the East from reinforcing Johnston’s army. Initially, Grant hoped for all these forces to move on April 25, 1864, except for Banks. Subsequently he ordered “a general movement of the armies” no later than May 4.8 To gather the men for this, Grant ordered the stripping of non-essential areas.9
Lincoln liked Grant’s idea. It coincided well with his own oft-stated view of how to fight the war: simultaneous pressure at different points. “Those not skinning can hold a leg,” Lincoln said. Grant appreciated this turn of phrase so much he borrowed it for one of his own notes. Sherman was also pleased. “That we are now all to act in a common plan, converging on a common center, looks like enlightened war.”10
Before the campaign began, Grant wrote a letter to Lincoln thanking the president, the administration, and the secretary of war for their continual support. He remarked that since being appointed lieutenant general he had been “astonished” that everything he had asked for had been done “without even an explanation being asked.” He closed the note by telling Lincoln: “Should my success be less than I desire, and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you.”11
Even before the offensive began, however, Grant had enjoyed Lincoln’s confidence in a way unlike any other Union general. “The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know,” the president wrote. “You are vigorous and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you.”12 It is difficult to imagine Lincoln penning such a note to any of Grant’s predecessors. Generally, he had insisted upon knowing the plans of his generals; if they had none, sometimes he provided one. For the first time since McClellan’s arrival, Lincoln had delegated the burden of directing the war to someone else. Though he gave Grant free rein, he still kept a close eye on military operations, as we will see, and did not shy from interference if he deemed it necessary.
When Grant launched the spring campaign, he planned to finish the war by November. But to do this, he had to overcome determined Confederate resistance in both the Eastern and Western Theaters. The West he left to Sherman’s capable hands. In the East, he took the reins, seeking first “to break the military power of the rebellion and capture the enemy’s important strongholds.” Because of this, he thought it vitally important that Butler take Richmond; only the “capture of Lee’s army,” Grant believed, would do more to accomplish the Union’s goals in the East. But Grant’s plan also had operational contingencies. If Butler failed, Grant wrote, “it was my determination, by hard fighting, either to compel Lee to retreat or to so cripple him that he could not detach a large force to go north and still retain enough for the defense of Richmond. It was well understood by both Generals Butler and Meade before starting on the campaign that it was my intention to put both their armies south of the James River in case of failure to destroy Lee without it.”13
Grant’s instructions to Butler had first emphasized the importance of capturing Richmond, Grant thinking this likely unless it was reinforced. Verbally, he also told Butler to tear up the railroads and seize Petersburg. Moreover, since the Army of the Potomac was moving simultaneously, this would make it dangerous for Lee to send troops against Butler, Grant believing the Confederates had no other units they could bring to Richmond “in time to meet a rapid movement from the north of James River.”14
Clearly seen in Grant’s plan are the elements that had brought success to Union arms in the first three years of the conflict: simultaneous pressure and movement at a number of different points and the pinning and attacking of Confederate armies. Ultimately, Grant’s great offensive would bring the Union victory, but not as soon as Grant had hoped. Two factors contributed to the protraction of the struggle: bungling by three of Grant’s subordinate commanders and the Confederacy’s adoption of a defensive strategy that aimed at stopping Union penetration of the Confederate heartland.
TO RUN THE DRIVE INTO GEORGIA, Grant had an excellent subordinate in Sherman. Together they had learned to fight the war, and together they proved instrumental in winning it for the Union. Sherman replaced Grant as the commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi (a conglomeration of four Union departments), based at Nashville, Tennessee, on March 18, 1864.15
Sherman’s operational objective was the army of Joe Johnston, “go where it might,” and he promised Grant that he would not let “side issues” divert him from hitting Johnston and doing as much damage as he could to Rebel resources. Sherman also thought ahead. Once Johnston withdrew behind the Chattahoochee River, he planned to launch a cavalry raid against the Montgomery-Georgia Railroad, breaking it. Moreover, he intended to not only keep Johnston from sending troops against Grant but also keep him from dispatching elements to counter Banks. Sherman hoped Banks would take Mobile, thereby opening up the Alabama River, which would subsequently ease Sherman’s supply problems. But he was not too worried if this did not happen, and foreshadowed his later campaign by writing, “Georgia has a million inhabitants. If they can live, we should not starve. If the enemy interrupt our communications, I will be absolved from all obligations to subsist on our own resources, and will feel perfectly justified in taking whatever and wherever we can find.”16
The Union generals who failed to execute their prongs of Grant’s strategy had let down their cause before; they at least proved consistent. Banks was out of the game before it began and never launched toward Mobile. Instead, he presided over the disastrous Red River campaign. It was planned as a thirty-day operation to knock the Trans-Mississippi out of the war. Doing so would support Lincoln’s political strategy of organizing new governments by helping the establishment of a reconstructed Louisiana. Banks, though, bungled the operation, which should have been completed in time for him to participate in Grant’s spring offensive, and was defeated by a dramatically inferior Confederate force. The last of Banks’s men returned from the expedition in late May, too late to participate in the big push. Banks was fired.17
Like Sherman, Lee also thought in terms of knocking the enemy about. By late March he had concluded that when the Union acted it was most likely to be against Longstreet’s forces in Kentucky or Johnston in Georgia, but he thought the blow would probably be against Johnston. As usual with Lee, he recommended an aggressive response: attacking Sherman’s forces. He believed that by doing this, Johnston’s army “might entirely frustrate the enemy’s plans by defeating him.”18
Davis also believed offensive action the solution and grew increasingly irritated by Johnston’s lack of aggression. By April 13, he was convinced that the continual postponement of any advance had decreased the utility of such a move. He was also frustrated that Johnston had failed to move quickly enough to forestall reported Union preparations for offensive operations in Virginia and North Carolina that targeted Richmond. This had been the “primary object” of “threatening movements” by Johnston’s army. He was well informed about Johnston’s transportation problems, from the general, from his staff, and from his own investigators. But Davis also operated under the false impression that the Union was stripping forces from Sherman to reinforce the East. Johnston disabused him of this notion. Nevertheless, Davis wanted offensive action immediately and believed Johnston had missed his best chance by not acting during the winter.19
Johnston said he didn’t oppose an offensive; he simply insisted upon launching it on his terms, not ones imposed by Richmond. He needed more troops and thought that Longstreet’s forces in Tennessee, as well as Polk’s in Mississippi, should be brought to his army. Longstreet went back to Virginia, but Polk’s troops were ordered to Johnston in May.20
When Sherman assumed his new command, Johnston’s forces were entrenched at Dalton. Johnston, Sherman said, “seemed to be acting purely on the defensive, so that we had time and leisure to take all our measures deliberately and fully.” This seemed to prove the point raised by Davis and Lee about leaving Sherman undisturbed. This was critical because it gave Sherman time to prepare. Moreover, “the great question of the campaign,” Sherman later wrote, “was one of supplies.” His army’s logistics lines stretched from Chattanooga through Nashville to Louisville, each leg of which the Union had to guard against Confederate raiders. This line lengthened with the advance into Georgia.21
The basic issue with the Atlanta campaign was this: should the South stand on the defensive, as Johnston insisted, or should it attack, as Davis and Lee believed? Both approaches had their advantages as well as their problems and raised other questions: If defense was the answer, what kind of defense? If offense, what kind of offense?
By standing completely on the defensive, tactically, operationally, and strategically, Johnston surrendered the initiative to the enemy and gave Sherman time to prepare at his leisure. But a full-scale attack against Sherman’s army, which outnumbered Johnston’s by two to one, was not the answer either, as Hood would show later. It is likely that Johnston’s best course of offensive action was raids on Sherman’s supply lines. This was what Johnston tried to do, producing constant worry for Sherman.22
When the campaign began, Johnston ordered Forrest to strike for central Tennessee and tear up the railroads feeding Sherman’s army. But Sherman had ordered 8,000 men from Memphis to hunt him down. Forrest defeated this Federal force, which was twice his size, at Brice’s Crossroads on June 10 by rolling up both the enemy’s flanks. The Federals suffered more than 2,200 casualties, and their commander, Brigadier General S. D. Sturgis, never received another command. But they did keep Forrest out of Tennessee. This was too late to help Johnston, though, and an angry Sherman dispatched a larger force of 14,000, insisting they would “follow Forrest to the death, if it cost 10,000 lives and breaks the Treasury.” They failed to kill Forrest, but they defeated him at Tupelo, Mississippi, wounding the famous cavalry leader and removing him temporarily from the field. The Confederates, though, were losing the cavalry advantage they had thus far enjoyed. All of this, and Union raids, prevented the destruction of Sherman’s supply lines, as did Sherman’s constructing blockhouses at each bridge and posting infantry at the stations. Moreover, Sherman’s railroad crews carried ample replacement material and learned to repair breaches with a speed and efficiency that stunned the Confederates.23
Any substantial success could have delayed the start of Sherman’s campaign, or at least limited its strength and ability to sustain an offensive. The South needed to buy time to allow war weariness in the North to increase. After three years of war, the North seemed no closer to winning the war in the summer of 1864 than it had after First Bull Run. Plus in the two months after the beginning of Grant’s grand offensive, the Union would suffer 90,000 casualties—without producing any readily apparent gains.24 Moreover, inflicting on Sherman’s army cumulative delays of one month might have placed the critical fall of Atlanta after the 1864 Union election. With Sherman stalled at Atlanta and Grant stuck before Richmond and Petersburg, Lincoln might have gone down to defeat and McClellan become president. There is little doubt that McClellan would have failed to prosecute the war with sufficient vigor to secure victory.
In the first twelve days of Sherman’s campaign his forces tramped and fought their way half the distance to Atlanta. In the face of the Union advance Johnston continued falling back. He kept close to the enemy, as Davis had instructed, the South mirroring the Union strategy of holding tight to the foe to prevent him from reinforcing the other theater—a good example of a symmetrical response. In the six days before May 20, Johnston withdrew 32 miles. The Confederates repulsed the Union attacks, and Johnston planned one of his own for May 15. This was never launched because the Union threatened Johnston’s communications. Another Confederate counterattack was stopped in mid-move by a false report that the Union had turned the South’s right flank. Johnston explained to Davis that he had been searching for an opportunity to attack, but Sherman dug in at the end of each flank movement, making any assault too risky.25 Davis must have seen the old Joe Johnston of the Peninsula Campaign rising from Georgia’s piney woods.
By the end of May, Sherman’s army had forced the Confederates out of “Dalton, Resaca, Cassville, Allatoona, and Dallas,” and advanced 100 miles south of Chattanooga. The fighting was bitter, the terrain was rough, and both sides made constant use of entrenchments, increasing the casualties in any attack. On one occasion Sherman told Halleck, “The whole country is one vast fort.” Generally, Sherman insisted, the attacker fared the worst.26
In early June, Bragg surveyed the situation facing the Confederacy. He wrote Davis, “As the entire available force of the Confederacy is now concentrated with our two main armies, I see no solution of this difficulty but in victory over one of the enemy’s armies before the combination can be fully perfected.” He sent Johnston a copy of the note, remarking, “From this you will see the work on hand, and be able to judge better than I can what should be our policy [strategy].”27
Davis and Bragg did all they could to get men to Johnston, and Davis remained convinced that Johnston had a chance of success if he attacked before the Union finished reinforcing. By the end of June, though, there were simply no more men to send him. On June 10, Johnston had 61,772 men present for duty, but his rosters carried 137,931 men. Georgia militia of 7,000–10,000 also supported him, and 1,500 cavalry were en route to his army.28
In June, despite the near omnipresence of rain, Sherman “pressed operations with the utmost earnestness.” His goal was to stay in constant contact with the Confederate forces, giving them no chance for a respite, and moving around (or turning) one of his flanks, seeking to cut both the Confederates’ lines of communications and any path of retreat. Unlike many generals, Civil War or otherwise, Sherman did not worship battle and carried no visions of Austerlitz in his often melancholy head. “Its glory is all moonshine,” he wrote; “even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentation of distant families.” But on June 27, Sherman decided he could stretch his lines no more and launched an attack at Kennesaw Mountain. He and his other commanding generals had concluded that “there was no alternative but to attack ‘fortified lines,’ a thing carefully avoided up to that time.” The Confederates repulsed the assault. The fighting went on; indeed, Sherman termed the period from June 10 until July 3 “a continuous battle.”29
When Johnston fell back from Kennesaw Mountain on his way to the Chattahoochee River, Davis grew deeply concerned. He worried that if Johnston crossed the Chattahoochee, this would enable the Union to cut Johnston’s communications with Alabama and then take advantage of northern Alabama’s weak defenses to destroy the area’s mines and industry. Davis feared that if Atlanta fell, the North would again sunder the Confederacy, as it had when Vicksburg surrendered.30
Johnston insisted that his retreat was slow and that he kept Bragg abreast of every change of position. Meanwhile, Joseph E. Brown, Georgia’s petulant, half-mad governor, grew increasingly and understandably anxious about Sherman’s advance. He pushed Davis to send more troops and to have cavalry attack Sherman’s supply lines. Johnston was thinking on similar lines and asked Davis if 4,000 of the supposedly 16,000 Confederate cavalry in Alabama and Mississippi could attack the railroad supplying Sherman from Dalton and force his retreat. Governor T. H. Watts of Alabama echoed the plea.31
Davis’s reply was damning of Johnston, Brown, and anyone else accusing him of inaction. He reminded Johnston that he knew good and well there were no such 16,000 cavalry and that much of what had been there had already been sent to reinforce him. Use them for his proposed raid, Davis said. “If it be practicable for distant cavalry,” he growled, “it must be more so for that which is near.”32
Johnston’s reply was not nearly as cutting and seems almost humble by comparison. He said his information on numbers had come from General Polk and that Johnston had not made a detachment to attack Sherman’s lines of supply because of the great disparity in forces between the opposing armies. Employing the 4,000 cavalry against Sherman’s communications, he insisted, was a way not only of forcing Sherman to retreat but also of saving the Department of Mississippi.33
Governor Brown sought another means of strengthening Johnston’s army and saving his state: he decreed what equated to a levée en masse. Brown (with a few exceptions) summoned to the colors all men in the Georgia reserve militia between the ages of sixteen and seventeen, all those fifty to fifty-five, and all free white men between seventeen and fifty who had not been subject to conscription. “Georgians,” Brown cried in his proclamation, “you must reenforce General Johnston’s army and aid in driving back the enemy, or he will drive you back to the Atlantic, burn your cities and public buildings, destroy your property, and devastate the fair fields of your noble State.”34 He must have been reading Sherman’s notes.
Brown got another prominent Georgian to intervene with the Confederate government on Georgia’s behalf—Confederate senator Benjamin H. Hill. Hill offered to visit Davis to try to get more resources for Georgia’s defense, but insisted upon seeing Johnston first to get an understanding of the situation. During their interview, Johnston repeated his belief that the only way Sherman could be expelled from Georgia was by destroying the railroad in his rear, thereby cutting off his supplies. Hill saw the situation as desperate, one of life or death for the Confederacy, and told Johnston that by continuously falling back he would eventually lose all his supply lines; at some point Sherman would “finally pen you up in Atlanta” and cut the railroads to the west and south of the city, leaving all the area from which Lee’s and Johnston’s armies drew their supplies at the mercy of the Union. The result, Hill told him, would be that “Richmond and the whole country will be captured.” Johnston responded that there would be a horrible fight before this occurred. Hill wrote: “This was the only point at which my mind received the impression that General Johnston would fight anyhow, or except under the condition previously mentioned.”35
Hill also told Johnston of the benefits of throwing Sherman out of Georgia: Tennessee and Kentucky regained, the failure of Lincoln’s reelection bid, and the war quickly ended on Southern conditions. “All, then, is lost by Sherman’s success,” Hill said, “and all is gained by Sherman’s defeat.” Then he asked Johnston if he had understood correctly the general’s insistence that the only way to stop Sherman was the proposed Confederate cavalry attack on his rear areas; Johnston replied that he had. Hill wrote: “I then expressed some apprehension that there would not be time for its execution; that the time was certainly passing rapidly. General Johnston thought it might be done. General Hood thought the time was passing, if it had not already passed. We all agreed that no time was to be lost.”36
Hill met with Davis in Richmond on July 1 and repeated Johnston’s request for forces to cut Sherman’s supply lines in order to push the Union into a battle. Hill also wanted to make sure Davis understood fully what was going on in Georgia. Davis told Hill how “long ago” he had ordered Morgan (who had escaped from Federal captivity in November) to move against Sherman’s rear, moving from Abingdon through eastern Tennessee. But Morgan convinced Davis that if he was allowed to go through Kentucky, he could recruit men and gather horses. Davis agreed but had cause to regret it. Morgan suffered defeat, and the raid came to nothing. During the meeting Davis asked Hill, “How long did you understand Gen. Johnston to say he could hold Sherman north of the Chattahoochee river?” “From fifty-four to sixty days,” Hill replied, basing his answer upon a count he had made, to which Johnston had assented. But when he gave Davis the numbers, “thereupon the President read me a dispatch from Gen. Johnston, announcing that he had crossed or was crossing the Chattahoochee river!”37
Later, Davis recalled his insistence that Johnston fight, as well as his fear that if the Confederates fell back too far it would enable the Union to send raids through parts of Alabama and Georgia denuded of troops and cut Johnston’s communications. “At last he fell back to Kennesaw Mountain & then to the Chattahootchie [sic]. There I lost all hope of a battle.” Before this, Johnston had refused to fight Sherman’s army unless it was outside its entrenchments; Sherman refused to give him the chance. And Johnston resorted to falling back when flanked.38
Davis sent Bragg to investigate. Bragg, in his inimitable fashion, wrote Davis: “I cannot learn that he has any more plan for the future than he has had in the past.” Bragg later told Davis that the only answer was to throw the Union back across the Chattahoochee River by attacking his flank while cavalry struck his lines of communication. Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and Major General Joseph Wheeler, respectively corps and cavalry commanders under Johnston, agreed with Bragg. “But the emergency is so pressing & the danger so great,” Bragg continued, “I think troops should at once be drawn from the Trans Mississippi to hold the Trans Chatahoochie [sic] Department.” Hood, behind Johnston’s back, also urged offensive action, as well as the movement of at least half of Kirby Smith’s troops from the Trans-Mississippi Department to reinforce Johnston’s Army of Tennessee. He believed these forces necessary for following up any success gained against Sherman. Indeed, newspapers in both the North and the South even reported the movement of Smith’s forces.39
Others suggested similar transfers from the Trans-Mississippi in the wake of the Union drawdown in the region. In late June, J. Henry Behan, a Confederate commissary officer writing from Meridian (or at least what was left of it), suggested to Davis that the forces under Magruder, Taylor, and Price could advance through Arkansas and Missouri, then into Kentucky and Tennessee, “destroying depots at Nashville, cutting supply lines at Chattanooga, and uniting with Hood to ‘capture the whole of the Yankee army under Sherman.’ “ Davis sent the note to Bragg, who liked the plan but pronounced it beyond the South’s capability. Seddon agreed and suggested using the force “in sustaining resistance or revolt” in Kentucky or the Northwest instead. Davis killed the whole matter by late August, believing from his last correspondence with Smith that the general simply lacked the means to do what Behan suggested.40
Davis asked Johnston what he planned to do. Johnston replied that since the enemy had twice his number in troops, the only choice was staying “on the defensive.” Operations would be reactive, responding to what the North was doing. The general idea would be “mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.” This was the last straw for Davis. He fired Johnston on July 17, the stated reason being his failure to stop Sherman’s advance. He was replaced by John Bell Hood. Hood, Hardee, and Lieutenant General Alexander P. Stewart, Johnston’s corps commanders, asked that this decision be delayed, the situation being so critical, until the issue of Atlanta had been decided. Davis refused, so Hood took command. When queried for his advice on Johnston’s replacement, Lee called Hood “a good fighter” but said that “Genl Hardee had more experience in managing an army.” Bragg insisted that “Hood is the man.”41
Later, Davis agreed with critics that he should have relieved Johnston sooner, but reminded a correspondent that the decision not to remove the general was based upon the information Davis possessed at the time. He insisted that had he known Johnston would abandon the mountainous areas of Georgia and retreat to Atlanta, he would have relieved him, “as it was my opinion then, as clearly as now, that Atlanta could be best defended by holding some of the strong positions to the North of it.”42
Johnston handed over his command on the eighteenth and offered a bitter defense of his actions: “As to the alleged cause of my removal, I assert that Sherman’s army is much stronger compared with that of Tennessee than Grant’s compared with that of Northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance much more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than to that of Richmond and Petersburg, and has penetrated much deeper into Virginia than into Georgia.”43 He later strengthened his defensive arguments, insisting in an August 13, 1864, letter that his approach was similar to Lee’s and that after the Battle of the Wilderness Lee “adopted precisely the course which I followed and gained great glory by it,” retreating “much more rapidly or rather less slowly.” He insisted, “I therefore thought and still think my plan of operations correct.”44
Davis had his own assessment. He had great respect for Johnston’s military ability, which accounts for Davis’s appointment of the general to high command on three separate occasions during the war, and even, seemingly, some sympathy for him. While maintaining that Johnston’s personal bravery was above dispute, “he seems to think that his army is not for the defense of the country, but that he must at all hazard protect his army.”45 On another occasion, shortly before relieving Johnston, Davis expressed similar feelings, remarking that while there was “not a better fighter in the army if he will only fight,” Johnston’s great problem was a “want of confidence.” “He can not realize his own power.”46
IN LATE MARCH 1864, Lee received Union newspaper reports that Grant’s first important drive would be against Richmond. He first thought the announcements of Grant setting up house with the Army of the Potomac a trick and confessed to having considered the news a “stratagem to attract our attention here, while he was left unmolested in dealing us a blow from the West.” To Lee, Grant’s presence meant the concentration of Union forces and the surety that the primary Union blow would fall upon Virginia. Lee soon gave his estimate of future Union operations, and of his new opponent. He knew that troops were gathering at Annapolis under Burnside, which made him suspect an attack on the Peninsula or via North Carolina. “It behooves us to be on alert, or we will be deceived. You know that is part of Grant’s tactics. He deceived Pemberton when he turned him, and in this last move of Sherman threw dust in Polk’s eyes.” He believed Grant’s presence meant a large force thrown against him on one or more lines of advance. “Unless we can take the initiative in the West to disturb their plans,” he wrote, “we shall have to concentrate to meet him.” The hungry winter of 1863–64 had not dulled Lee’s aggressive side, nor his belief in the advantages conferred by offensive action. “If a good move could be made before they are ready to execute their plans, we would confound their schemes and break them up.”47
As always, Lee read his enemy well. He believed that Grant was sure to move the Army of the Potomac against Richmond, while Burnside’s army would be thrown on the Confederate flank. He also had “indications” that the Union would put more troops into the Shenandoah Valley. He reiterated his concerns to Davis, insisting that “if an aggressive movement can be made in the West it will disconcert their plans & oblige them to conform to ours.” If this could not be done, Lee advised that Longstreet’s forces be made ready to enter the valley or reinforce Lee. He also asked for the return of all troops detached from the Army of Northern Virginia.48
Bragg assured Lee that the government was doing everything it could to shore up his position. Longstreet went back to Virginia, but Bragg dashed any hopes Lee had for a western offensive, telling Lee that since Johnston had not come up with a plan to move into Tennessee, diverting enemy troops from the East, the strategy “necessarily became defensive.”49
Lee, as he labored to decipher the enemy’s intent, worried about his supply situation. He deemed critical the maintenance of the railroads supplying his troops. Their destruction would make it impossible for him to maintain his position and might force his withdrawal into North Carolina.50 Lee knew these fragile rail lines were his army’s Achilles’ heel, and he would return again and again to this concern. Cutting these would also make holding the Confederate capital impossible. His enemy realized this as well.
By mid-April, Lee developed a detailed picture of Grant’s plan for his spring campaign in the Eastern Theater. Lee painted for Davis a strategic canvas where a large Union army would cross the Rappahannock, aiming at Richmond, while another advanced from Annapolis to take the Confederate capital “in flank or rear.” Union troops and ironclads at Charleston would come to the James River. The Red River campaign’s failure made Mobile secure, allowing Johnston to draw reinforcements from there. Moreover, the Confederates also soon knew of Sigel’s anticipated offensive in the Shenandoah. Lee proved incorrect about some of the specific enemy forces involved and where they would be used (such as Burnside’s command), but he had successfully deciphered some of the major elements of the Union’s 1864 strategy. Confederate intelligence sources were not providing completely accurate information, but they were doing pretty well.51
To meet the coming Union offensive, Lee called upon Davis to scrape men from everywhere so that he could attack. “If Richmond could be held secure against the attack from the east,” he told Davis, “I would propose that I draw Longstreet to me & move right against the enemy on the Rappahannock. Should God give us a crowning victory there, all their plans would be dissipated, & their troops now collecting on the waters of the Chesapeake will be recalled to the defence of Washington.” Lee forecast bad results if he had to withdraw. He believed local offensive action the solution; it could upset Grant’s plans, and he habitually sought to keep the enemy off balance. For the rest of April, Lee struggled to get more men for his army and to get Imboden’s forces in northwestern Virginia to move against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad before the Union could properly protect it.52
Realizing the threat to Richmond, Lee tried to get Beauregard moved to the Petersburg area at the head of troops from the Carolinas. Instead, Beauregard was put in charge of yet another new military department based at Weldon, North Carolina. The road to Richmond through Petersburg was left open. Moreover, troops Lee had detached to North Carolina were still involved in the siege of New Bern.53
Grant, as Lee had learned, went with the Army of the Potomac. Operationally, Grant’s idea from the start had been “to beat Lee’s army north of Richmond if possible.” After that, he would destroy his lines of communication north of the James, cross the army over the river, and then “besiege Lee in Richmond, or follow him south if he should retreat.” Grant, though, had had high expectations for Butler’s thrust against Richmond, hoping that the capture of the city might have decisive results, at least in the war’s Eastern Theater. But if Butler did not take Richmond, Grant had also mapped out a second course: “hard fighting” that would force Lee to retreat or “so cripple him that he could not detach a large force to go north and still retain enough for the defense of Richmond.”54
On May 5, Grant launched his arm of the Union’s great spring offensive, embarking upon a campaign that would last until Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. The day before, May 4, Lee had sent word that Grant’s army was on the move. He told Davis: “It seems to me that the great efforts of the enemy here and in Georgia have begun, and that the necessity of our concentration at both points is immediate and imperative.” Here again, Lee offered his standard tactical, operational, and strategic riposte: concentration at the decisive point. But to Lee, this also always ensured his freedom of maneuver and thus opened up other opportunities.55
Upon hearing of the Union advance, Longstreet suggested something that Grant had feared: moving around the Union right. This would place the Confederate army between Grant’s forces and the Union capital, threatening both Washington and the Union rear.56 Lee didn’t choose this route, but he did put his forces in motion to meet the enemy and placed all the units in the valley under the command of Major General John C. Breckinridge, a Mexican War veteran, vice president in the Buchanan administration, and former senator, telling him to fight the Union forces pushing up the Valley, “or by some movement to draw [them] back before they get on my left.”57
Both Grant and Lee hoped to catch their enemy in motion and force a battle. The armies stumbled into each other, resulting in a confused struggle on May 5–6 that became known as the Battle of the Wilderness. Around 100,000 Union troops tangled with Lee’s 60,000 Confederates on fields choked with heavy Virginia undergrowth. Weapon blasts set the brush ablaze, burning to death many of the wounded. But the tough terrain helped prevent the Union from effectively bringing its superior numbers to bear. On the second day Longstreet’s corps appeared just in time to prevent a Union breakthrough on the southern end of the battlefield, then came within a whisper of making one of their own. The attack faltered when two Rebel units fired into each other, wounding Longstreet. Meanwhile, Confederate forces on the northern flank of the fight also came close to crushing the Union flank; darkness stopped this. Lee inflicted 17,600 casualties on the enemy for about 11,000 of his own.58
Tactically, the Battle of the Wilderness was a defeat for the Union. But Grant had immediately accomplished one of the strategic objectives of his advance: pinning Lee’s army. In the battle’s wake, Grant raised the whole spirit of the Army of the Potomac when he turned Lee’s flank to the east and headed south.59 Grant also inaugurated something new for the Civil War: continuous battle. Previously, particularly in the East, the armies had tangled for a few days and then withdrew. No more.60
The greatest failure in the Union offensive came at the hands of Benjamin Butler. Before the campaign, an enthusiastic Butler had promised he would move even if he had only ten men and said he wouldn’t stop to dig in. He had orders to establish a strong position after landing and then drive on Richmond. The operation provided an excellent opportunity to penetrate the South’s defenses while Grant tied down the bulk of Confederate manpower in the East, especially Lee’s army. Moreover, Davis had not heeded advice from Lee to protect the areas between Richmond and Petersburg against a Union descent, making it possible for Butler to land against very thin opposition. But to pay off, such a gambit needed a vigorous commander, which Butler was not. Coming ashore on May 5 and gaining, as Grant termed it “complete surprise,” Butler entrenched on May 6, set up a base for drawing supply, and tore up some of the important rail lines. He even launched a successful attack that took the Confederates’ first lines on Drewry’s Bluff. But his army did not advance. Grant was not pleased. Butler’s failure allowed Beauregard time to gather forces from the Carolinas, bring them to Virginia, counterattack Butler on the sixteenth, and then entrench themselves while protecting the vital railroad into Richmond and the city itself. As a result, Butler’s army, Grant wrote later, “though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked. It required but a comparatively small force of the enemy to hold it there.”61
Butler had faced only light resistance, and his orders were to drive to Richmond. At a minimum, he could have burned the city, destroying Lee’s logistical base and strategic position. His failure to execute his orders probably prolonged the war, thus costing tens of thousands of lives.
Meanwhile, Grant pushed. Believing Lee would stay in his works in the wake of the Wilderness, he attempted to steal a night march on May 7. If he could beat the Confederates to Spotsylvania, he could get between Lee and Richmond. Alerted to activity in the Union lines, Lee got to Spotsylvania first, which made the difference. A week of bloody fighting followed. The combat included a May 12 attack by 20,000 Federal troops against a salient, or bulge in the Confederate lines, known as “Bloody Angle.” It was stopped only because of a secondary line of entrenchments. Losses were 4,100 to 6,820, the Federals getting the worst of it. Tactically, Lee managed the battle very well. His men also dug the most intricate system of trenches in history up to this point. They stopped Grant, but not for long.62
Sigel’s drive into the Shenandoah also did not go as Grant had hoped. Lee told Breckinridge that it would be “very desirable” if he could throw back the enemy forces there and then join Lee. Breckinridge proceeded to do so. He defeated the Union forces under Sigel at New Market, Virginia, on May 15, but then Lee altered his orders, telling Breckinridge to press the Union forces down the valley and pursue them into Maryland if it was possible but to make preparations to join Lee if it was not, and if the valley could be defended without him. Lee thought the former provided the most benefit to Confederate arms.63 Breckenridge joined Lee, temporarily.
After Sigel’s defeat, Grant gave Major General David Hunter the command, ordering him to advance to Charlottesville and Lynchburg, living off the country and tearing up the region’s canals and railroads before withdrawing and joining the Army of the Potomac.64
Grant’s strategy for 1864 also included raids. In early May, Grant launched an enormous cavalry raid, 10,000 strong, toward Richmond to tear up Confederate communications, destroy their supplies, and “whip Stuart.” Commanded by Sheridan, it lasted sixteen days. Most significantly, it led to the death of the aforementioned Confederate cavalry general, who was mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern on May 11. Sheridan made another raid in June that prevented Lee from shifting troops to Petersburg, and Hunter launched another in the Shenandoah.65 Such raids, though useful, would not win the North the campaign, nor were they intended to.
Meanwhile, Lee’s casualties began mounting, whittling away at his ability to maneuver. He needed more men. Davis suggested he pull the troops from the valley, but Lee believed this too dangerous because it would leave the Union forces there unopposed. By mid-May Davis got very serious about gathering troops for Lee and ordered up units from farther south, as well as reserves from Virginia and North Carolina. Lee pushed Davis to concentrate and told him the choice was between fighting north of the capital or at Richmond itself.66
On May 21, Grant once again turned Lee’s flank and headed south. He moved his force in a wide semicircular route southeastward, again striving to place his army between Lee and Richmond. Lee had anticipated the move. “But the enemy,” Grant wrote, “again having the shorter line and being in possession of the main roads, was enabled to reach the North Anna in advance of us, and took position behind it.” Lee told his wife two days later, “We have the advantage of being nearer our supplies & less liable to have our communications, trains, &c., cut by his cavalry & he is getting farther from his base. Still I begrudge every step he makes towards Richmond.”67
The strategy Grant was now pursuing, attrition, was not one he preferred, but he had been prepared to try it if his hand was forced. Maneuver had failed, in Grant’s theater as well as Sherman’s, and Grant especially had little choice but to simply grind away at the enemy’s capacity to continue the fight.68 The constraints of the terrain; the enemy’s adoption of a defensive strategy that tactically included heavy use of fortifications; the skill of the Confederate commander, Lee, who showed a marked ability to guess Grant’s next move; the failure of Butler’s offensive—all of this left Grant little choice.69
Some have branded Grant’s fight against Lee a strategy of annihilation. This was simply not the case. Strategically, the Union was pursuing attrition; Grant himself called it this. Grant was not seeking a single, climactic battle. Moreover, Grant had no illusions about the campaign in Virginia. He realized the bitter necessity of desperate fighting if the Union wanted to bring the war to a close. He wrote later: “The losses inflicted, and endured, were destined to be severe; but the armies now confronting each other had already been in deadly conflict for a period of three years, with immense losses … and neither had made any real progress toward accomplishing the final end.” What lay ahead was a campaign that “was destined to result in heavier losses, to both armies, in a given time, than any previously suffered; but the carnage was to be limited to a single year, and to accomplish all that had been anticipated or desired at the beginning in that time.”70 Grant originally intended the campaign to end the war by November; the Confederates insisted otherwise. But his larger point was a good one, for the longer the war continued, the more the casualties mounted. The sooner it ended, the quicker the dying would end as well.
There was great risk in Grant’s approach. Attrition takes time, which is the greatest of enemies to political leaders waging war. The populace will endure casualties for only so long. There will come a point at which they will simply cry no, the value of the object, in Clausewitz’s words, having exceeded the cost they are willing to pay. A people will reach this point more quickly when they do not see battlefield results demonstrating clear steps on the road to success. The side choosing to implement an attrition strategy must also prove able to outlast their opponent in terms of will and resources. The weaker in either of these arenas may yield first.
Grant kept moving, though Lee’s quick replies gave the Union few openings. Lee maneuvered his forces so that “whatever route he pursues I am in a position to move against him, and shall endeavor to engage him while in motion.” His plan was also to stay near enough to Richmond to cooperate with Beauregard if necessary. But he was more interested in getting help than in giving it, insisting that in regard to Grant’s army, “it seems our best policy [strategy] to unite upon it and endeavor to crush it.”71
Lee was unaware that Beauregard had already submitted proposals for cooperation between the two forces. Beauregard, always good for a plan, suggested on May 14 that Lee fall back to the Chickahominy, perhaps even to the lines around Richmond, and send Beauregard 15,000 men with which to wipe out Butler. Then Beauregard could join Lee with 25,000 men, which would permit the destruction of Grant. Bragg forwarded the plan to Davis, accompanied by a withering commentary that included the fact that it would necessitate Lee’s withdrawing 60 miles in the face of 8,000 Union cavalry, risking the destruction of his army. Other possible lesser catastrophes included the fall of Petersburg, the loss of the railroad supplying Lee’s army, and the enemy’s capture of the region necessary for its future supply. Minor details, certainly. Bragg went on to insist that the force Beauregard had under his control was sufficient for destroying Butler if it was simply used effectively (whatever that meant in Bragg-speak).72
Four days later, Beauregard submitted another plan entailing cooperation with Lee. It too involved Lee falling back to the Chickahominy to draw in Grant. Beauregard would take 15,000 men, unite with Breckinridge, and together they would hit Grant’s flank with 20,000 men, ensuring the defeat of the Union army. All of this would be done quickly enough to allow Beauregard to return with reinforcements from Lee’s army and drive Butler away.73
“If 15,000 men can be spared for the flank movement proposed,” Davis observed, “certainly 10,000 may be sent to re-enforce General Lee. If that be done immediately General Lee’s correspondence warrants the belief that he will defeat the enemy in Northern Virginia.” Bragg certainly agreed and dispatched a staff officer and appropriate transportation to Drewry’s Bluff to get Beauregard’s troops on the move. The Creole general resisted, giving Bragg the plan for a counteroffensive that Beauregard insisted would result in the expulsion of all of Butler’s force—if the troops remained with him. Bragg refused and Beauregard bowed. Davis explained to Beauregard the importance of defeating Grant and hoped that the Confederate forces confronting Butler would be able to join Lee before Butler’s troops united with Grant.74
Lee continued to try to pull men to his hard-pressed force. As Grant began evacuating Butler, Lee told Davis: “If this army is unable to resist Grant, the troops under Genl Beauregard and in the city will be unable to defend it.”75 By the beginning of June, Lee concluded that the time had arrived for Confederate offensive action. He wrote Lieutenant General A. P. Hill that they needed to attack in order to keep the Federals from setting up a siege of Richmond, for if that happened, it would be only a matter of time before the capital fell. But nothing came of this.76
In the second week of June, Bragg recommended to Davis a different Confederate approach: driving the Union forces out of the Shenandoah Valley, thus opening the road to Washington. Davis sent the comment along to Lee. Lee agreed about driving the enemy out of the valley but said it would take one corps to do so. Lee would do it if it was “deemed prudent to hazard the defense of Richmond,” which would be the result of taking away troops for the valley. This idea evolved, Lee hoping that Jubal Early’s presence in the valley would not only make Lee’s position more secure but also provide the Army of Northern Virginia with some relief. Later, Lee explained what he intended in his orders to Early, who was to attack, chase the enemy down the valley if possible, and, “if opportunity offered, to follow him into Maryland.” This would drive the Union from the Shenandoah, while also threatening Washington and Baltimore, and force Grant to “weaken himself so much for their protection” that he would be vulnerable to attack—or be forced to attack.77 The South now launched an operational diversion in the Shenandoah.
Defeated by Early at Lynchburg on June 18, Union general Hunter retreated northwest, up the Kanawha River, toward Lexington, instead of toward Charlottesville, supply driving his move. This took his army out of the theater of action. Hunter’s escape disappointed Lee, but he still believed the best option was for Early to push down the valley. Lee told Davis, “I still think it is our policy [strategy] to draw the attention of the enemy to his own territory. It may force Grant to attack me, or weaken his force.”78 Early, with around 15,000 men, crossed into Maryland on July 6. After demanding and getting a $200,000 ransom from the inhabitants of Frederick, Maryland, Early pushed on toward the capital. Union major general Lew Wallace, a Shiloh veteran who is most famous for having penned Ben Hur, assembled a scratch force of 2,000 men to oppose him. He did this on his own, being convinced that Halleck would never allow it. Wallace marched his men to the Monocacy River, just east of Frederick, where he was reinforced by 5,000 men sent by Grant. After a sharp fight, Early captured nearly all of Wallace’s little army, drove off the rest, and pushed to the outskirts of Washington. But the invaders were spent. Captain William Whitehurst Old, Early’s aide-de-camp, wrote on July 11: “Troops much broken down by excessive heat, long marches, dusty roads and the exceedingly dry country through which we passed.” The next night, they began their retreat.79
Lincoln saw in Early’s advance not impending disaster (though that is exactly what many saw) but rather a chance to destroy a Confederate army. Nonetheless, he was unwilling to trust the safety of the capital to other hands. He summoned Grant, as well as reinforcements, and told his general in chief, “Now, what I think is that you should provide to retain your hold where you are, certainly, and bring the rest with you personally, and make a vigorous effort to destroy the enemy’s force in this vicinity. I think there is really a fair chance to do this if the movement is prompt.” Grant did not come, believing his absence from the main front would have a bad effect. He did send a corps to reinforce Washington and told Lincoln that he had “great faith that the enemy will never be able to get back with much of his force.”80
Grant proved mistaken. The cumbersome Union command structure had the forces opposing Early in four separate commands. Moreover, Grant did not take a firm hold on the situation, and his inaction led to a rebuke from Lincoln. The response to Early’s diversion marked a rare intervention on the part of Lincoln in Grant’s conduct of the war. Generally Lincoln left Grant alone, but this time he corrected his general in chief, and it was a needed admonition.81
In early August, Grant reorganized the Union forces around Washington into the Middle Military Division. He told Halleck that he wanted Sheridan put in command with instructions to “put himself south of the enemy and follow him to the death. Wherever the enemy goes let our troops go also.” Lincoln, when he saw the dispatch, heartily approved, remarking, “This, I think, is exactly right as to how our forces should move.” But it is clear that Lincoln had no confidence that Grant’s subordinates would do the job unless the general in chief peered over their shoulders. Evidence of this appears in his instruction to Grant to “please look over the dispatches you may have rece[i]ved from here, even since you made that order, and discover, if you can, that there is any idea in the head of any one here of ‘putting our army South of the enemy’ or of following him to the ‘death’ in any direction. I repeat to you, it will be neither done nor attempted, unless you watch it every day, and hour, and force it.” Grant replied that he would leave within two hours and headed for the Monocacy. Moreover, to limit reinforcements to Early and assist Sheridan’s counteroffensive in the Shenandoah (about which we will see more in the next chapter), Grant ordered a movement on the north side of the James River with the intent of threatening Richmond and keeping the Confederates in their trenches.82 Lee proved partially correct: Grant weakened his forces in response to Early’s efforts.
On August 4, Lee told Davis that he had information that Grant was reinforcing the Union forces in the valley with the probable intention of overrunning Early and finishing the Shenandoah’s destruction. He urged the dispatch of reinforcements to hold the valley and its valuable railroad connection into Richmond. Two days later, Lee tried to counter the Union thrust by sending troops to middle Virginia to cooperate with early. Lee believed it necessary to have Confederate units operating north of the Rappahannock. He even discussed their demonstrating against Washington, if given the opportunity. Lee wanted action, writing that “any enterprise that can be undertaken to injure the enemy, distract or separate his forces, embarrass his communications on the Potomac or on land is desirable.” But Lee lacked the forces to properly do this. Union action on his flanks was robbing him of both troops and his freedom to move and maneuver.83
In the end, the Union failed to trap Early as Lincoln had hoped (and feared wouldn’t happen) and in spite of his efforts. It must have appeared tothe president that the Union generals once again had bungled a chance to destroy a Confederate army away from its base, just as they had done during the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns.
Meanwhile, the campaign ground on, and the casualties mounted with bloody actions at places such as Cold Harbor, where 60,000 Union troops, in an assault that dwarfed Pickett’s Charge, attacked a heavily fortified Rebel position and suffered 3,500 casualties in eight minutes. After this repulse, Grant again turned south. He crossed the James River, stealing a march on Lee, who was caught off guard. This buoyed Lincoln. “I begin to see it,” he wired Grant. “You will succeed. God bless you all.” Grant advanced on Petersburg, hoping to take the lightly held city before the Confederates caught wind of his intent. Slow action on the part of his subordinates cost the Union its chance. By June 16, both sides had entrenched outside the city. In six weeks, Grant had suffered 60,000 casualties to the South’s probably 33,000.84 But Grant’s could be replaced.
Northern morale was depressed by losses that seemed to have delivered nothing more than putting the Army of the Potomac where it had been two years earlier. Journalist Noah Brooks wrote: “The great public, like a spoiled child, refuses to be comforted, because Richmond is not taken forthwith, and because we do not meet with an unbroken success at every point.”85 But Lincoln did not share their feelings. He certainly did not like the casualties, but he began to believe that finally he had a general who would succeed. In the wake of Fredericksburg he had lamented the fact that he could not find a general who understood the war’s bloody arithmetic. In Grant, Lincoln had a general who understood that the people were weary of the war, that it was costing $4 million a day, and that prolonging it would kill even more men, particularly with the approach of summer and the deadly diseases that accompanied its onset.86
From June 19, 1864, Petersburg was effectively under siege. Grant began launching operations to the south of Petersburg to cut the city’s supply and communications lines, and to the north of the James River to endanger Richmond or cut the Virginia Central Railroad. By the end of the month, Lee worried more about the state of his supplies than about fending off Grant. Indeed, he feared that this might force him to attack Grant’s trenches, something he had no desire to do because of the casualties he would incur. He worried about his communications as well.87
Lee tried to do other things to stop the Union offensive. In late July, he sought to dispatch Morgan in a raid against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and into Pennsylvania, but illness kept Morgan from going. Lee did launch raids with cavalry into Maryland and Pennsylvania. He talked with Ewell about finding some way of interfering with Union navigation of the James River and considered sending a force, mounted and with long-range guns, across the lines south of the Potomac in the hopes of stirring up the leadership in Washington.88 Always he looked for ways to knock the enemy off balance and disturb his plans.
By late July, Lee believed it was time for aggressive action. “We cannot afford to sit down in front of the enemy and allow him to entrench himself wherever he pleases,” he wrote. But as the month wore on he became increasingly frustrated: “Where are we to get sufficient troops to oppose Grant? He is bringing to him now the 19th Corps, & will bring every man he can get. His talent & strategy consists in accumulating overwhelming numbers.”89 Such is the application of attrition.
By choosing to target the Confederate armies, Grant revealed what he deemed the South’s chief center of gravity. He did not seek a decisive battle (though surely he would have taken it if it was offered), nor was he seeking merely the seizure of a specific location. He sought to win the war and would do this by destroying his enemy’s ability to fight it.