NEW CREEK, (WEST)
VIRGINIA, April 8, 1865.
DEAREST:— The glorious
news is coming so fast that I hardly know how to think and feel about
it. It is so just that Grant, who is by all odds our man of greatest
merit, should get this victory. It is very gratifying too
that Sheridan gets the lion's share of the glory of the
active fighting. The clique of showy shams in the Army of the
Potomac are represented by Warren. We do not know the facts, but I suspect
Warren hung back, and after the Potomac fashion, didn't take hold
with zeal when he found Sheridan was to command. So he was sent to the rear!
General Crook wrote me the day before the battle that the men were in superb
condition and eager for the fray, but that some of the generals were
half whipped already. No doubt he meant Warren. Crook commanded the
advance of Sheridan's attack. No doubt his strategy had much to do
with it.
Personally, matters
are probably as well as they could be, considering that we are in the hands, as
Joe says, of the Yankees. The fall of Richmond came the day
before we all left Camp Hastings. We had a glorious time. All the men
gathered, all the bands; Chaplain Collier and I talked. I
did not then of course say good-bye, but I said about all I would
have said if just parting. The Thirty-sixth is about as near to me, the
officers possibly more so, than the Twenty-third. I am in a
command of all sorts now, a good regiment of cavalry, the
old Pennsylvania Ringgold Cavalry, two batteries of Ohio men,
one of them Captain Glassier's (the old Simmonds Battery), one
of the veteran West Virginia regiments (Second Veterans), and a
lot of others of less value. It was intended to send me in
command of about five thousand men, quite a little army, by mountain
routes towards Lynchburg. We are still preparing for it, but I have no
idea now that we shall go. I wish to remain in service until
my four years is up in June. Then I shall resign or not, as seems best. If
matters don't suit me, I'll resign sooner.
Now, if things
remain here in statu quo, would you like (to) come
here? It is a most romantic spot. I have Captain Nye and Lieutenant
Turner of Thirty-sixth as part of my staff, Charley Smith,
Billy Crump, and two other Twenty-third men as orderlies. We have
speedy communication by rail and telegraph and with a
little more company it would be very jolly.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 572-3
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