Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Russell Lyman, June 12, 1864

June 12, 1864^l

General Grant has appeared with his moustache and beard trimmed close, giving him a very mild air — and indeed he is a mild man really. He is an odd combination; there is one good thing, at any rate — he is the concentration of all that is American. He talks bad grammar, but he talks it naturally, as much as to say, “I was so brought up and, if I try fine phrases, I shall only appear silly.” Then his writing, though very terse and well expressed, is full of horrible spelling. In fact, he has such an easy and straightforward way that you almost think that he must be right and you wrong, in these little matters of elegance.  . . . At 3 P.M. tents were struck and we all rode to Despatch Station, where we turned up to the left and went as far as Moody's house.  . . . We halted in a field hard by and waited for the train, an operation that required much patience: for the waggons undertook to go over a sort of mill-dam, and tumbled down a bank and had many mishaps, so that they arrived only at ten. General Grant, however, had made a big fire, got a piece of board, lain down on it, with a bag under his head, and was fast asleep. At eleven, before getting to bed; we had news that Wilson's cavalry had forced the passage of the Chickahominy at Long's Bridge (the bridge was long since burnt) and that the pontoon was going down for the passage of the 5th Corps. Fain would I write more, but I am so stupid and sleepy that I am not equal to it.

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¹ On this date the army began its march to the James River.

SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 156