Friday, October 4, 2019

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Julia Dent Grant, March 1, 1862

Fort Donelson, Ten.
Feb.y March 1st 1862
Dear Julia.

Enclosed I send you seven hundred dollars which with as much as you can spare from money you already have you may lend to the store taking a note payable to yourself. In sending this I am anticipating my March pay but I will be able to send you one hundred every month for your support and when all is paid up I can send you four hundred per month for you to apply the savings for your own benefit. I want you to accumulate all you can against any accident that may arise. I hope this War will not continue long and when it does end I want to have a few hundred dollars at least independent of every body. My pay now is over $6000 per year and I can live off of one thousand even as a Maj. Gen. Keeping my horses is necessarily somewhat expensive but in other particulars I spend but very little.—Should I not be where you can join me this Summer I want you to visit your friends and mine.—Send the children to school and tell them to be good and not annoy anybody. Dear children tell them their pa thinks of them every day notwithstanding he has so much els to think of. I have done a good job at Forts Henry and Donelson but I am being so much crippled in my resources that I very much fear that I shall not be able to advance so rapidly as I would like. When I left Cairo steam transportation was so scarse that it took two trips to bring up my force leaving behind nearly all my wagons and leaving the cavalry to march. Since that I have been unable to get up these teams. Besides this Gen. Buell ordered to his column some of my troops that were at Clarkesville; the loss in battle and from fatigue and exposure takes of a number of thousands; I sent off two regiments to guard prisoners who have not been returned, and if I leave, garrisons will have to be left here, at Clarkesville and Fort Henry. This will weaken me so much that great results cannot be expected. I shall write to Gen. Halleck to-day however stating all these facts. I have written to those at Cairo who should have rectified this matter but without much response. Remember this is a private letter and is not to be made public. You had better keep it however. I do hope that I will be placed in a seperate Department so as to be more independent, not that I have any fault to find with Gen. Halleck on the contrary I regard him as one of the greatest men of the age and there are not two men in the United States who I would prefer serving under to McClellan & Halleck. They would be my own chois for the positions they fill if left to me to make. Kiss the children for me. The same for yourself.

Ulys.

SOURCE: John Y. Simon & William M. Ferraro, Editors The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 4: January 8-March 31, 1862, p. 305-6

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