Culpepper C. H., Va., April 13, 1864.
. . . What I wrote yesterday of my confirmation is perhaps
true, but the declared reasons, from a subsequent conversation with General
Wilson, I am satisfied are not the correct ones . . . The investigation will
affect only the officer named as the subject of it. They have passed over the
confirmation of other staff appointments for the present, simply to enable them
to get through the investigation of this case in quiet . . . I see nothing
wrong in this at all. As I wrote, however, it is more on your account than my
own that I should feel badly.
The General will be back from Annapolis to-morrow. This will
finish up his visits to points of rendezvous for the troops, until he has tried
with Lee the merits of their respective armies. You see, I have no doubt, much
in the newspapers as to the plan of coming campaigns. For these of course we
care little, but you know my opinion of General William F. Smith, who has
altogether a different plan from that of the General, and feels very badly that
Grant don't fall into his views . . . We have not communicated his plans to
either General Wilson or General Smith. Of one thing the country can be
assured, the General does not mean to scatter his army and have it whipped in
detail. No such calamity as this will happen to us, I am certain. If I have
ever been of signal service to General Grant, it has been in my constant, firm
advocacy of massing large forces against small ones, in other words, of always
having the advantage of numbers on our side. Such is the General's notion of
battles. . . .
SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins,
p. 415-6
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