I received your very welcom[e] letter and should have answered it sooner but find my time very much taxed.—I will avail myself of your offer should there be another movement made under my command. I missed you wonderfully in [getting] our wagons, baggage and everything over the river with the limited means at hand. I felt that you would have expedited matters one half. All is going on here now just right. We have our trenches pushed up so close to the enemy that we can throw Hand Grenades over into their forts. The enemy do not dare show their heads above the parapets at any point so close and so watchful are our sharpshooters. The town is completely invested. My position is so strong that I feel myself abundantly able to leave it so and go out twenty or thirty miles with force enough to whip two such garrisons. If Johnstone [sic] should come here he must do it with a larger Army than the Confederacy have now at any one place. This is what I think but do not say it boastingly nor do I want it repeated or shown.
SOURCE: John Y. Simon, Editor, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 8, p. 379
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