Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Mead, August 9, 1864

August 9, 1864.

I am delighted to see your letter is written in such good spirits, and am truly rejoiced to hear I have so many and such warm friends. The attempt to implicate me in the recent fiasco was truly ridiculous; still, the public must in time be influenced by these repeated and constant attacks, however untrue and unjustifiable they may be. Have you ever thought that since the first week after Gettysburg, now more than a year, I have never been alluded to in public journals except to abuse and villify me? And why this is I have never been able to imagine.

I had a letter to-night from Cortlandt Parker, who has recently seen George Harding. He says Harding told him he had recently seen Stanton, who is an enthusiastic admirer of Grant, and that Stanton observed that Grant had a most exalted opinion of me, and told him, Stanton, that when he first came East he thought Sherman was the first soldier in the country, but now he believed I was his equal, if not superior. I send you this for what it is worth. I certainly think Grant has a queer way of showing his appreciation. Grant has not until recently seen Stanton, since we crossed the Rapidan, so could not have told him this; but Dana may have conveyed this information.

There was an awful explosion to-day at City Point of a powder and ammunition vessel. It is said sixty were killed and one hundred and fifty wounded.

I have been engaged for two days giving my testimony before the court of inquiry that is investigating the Petersburg disaster. It will take them a long time to get through, and I fancy active operations will interrupt their proceedings till such time that the witnesses will be scattered. Grant has not yet acted on my application to have Burnside relieved. The weather continues awfully hot, but the army is in good health.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 220

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to John L. Motley, April 29, 1860

Boston, April 29th, 1860.

It was so pleasant, my dear Lothrop, to get a letter from you. I have kept it a week or two so as to have something more to tell you, yet I fear it will not be much after all. Yesterday, the Saturday Club had its meeting, I carried your letter in my pocket, not to show to anybody, but to read a sentence or two which I knew would interest them all, and especially your kind message of remembrance. All were delighted with it; and on my proposing your health, all of them would rise and drink it standing. We then, at my suggestion, gave three times three in silence, on account of the public character of the place and the gravity and position of the high assisting personages. Be assured that you were heartily and affectionately, not to say proudly, remembered. Your honours are our honours, and when we heard you had received that superior tribute, which stamps any foreigner's reputation as planetary, at the hands of the French Institute, it was as if each of us had had a ribbon tied in his own button-hole. I hoped very much to pick up something which might interest you from some of our friends which know more of the political movements of the season than I do.

I vote with the Republican party. I cannot hesitate between them and the Democrats. Yet what the Republican party is now doing it would puzzle me to tell you. What its prospects are for the next campaign, perhaps I ought to know, but I do not. I am struck with the fact that we talk very little politics of late at the Club. Whether or not it is disgust at the aspect of the present political parties, and especially at the people who represent them, I cannot say; but the subject seems to have been dropped for the present in such society as I move about in, and especially in the Club. We discuss first principles, enunciate axioms, tell stories, make our harmless jokes, reveal ourselves in confidence to our next neighbours after the Chateau Margaux has reached the emotional centre, and enjoy ourselves mightily But we do not talk politics. After the President's campaign is begun, it is very likely that we may, and then I shall have something more to say about Mr. Seward and his prospects than I have now.

How much pleasure your praise gave me I hardly dare to say. I know that I can trust it. You would not bestow it unless you liked what I had done, but you would like the same thing better if I had done it than coming from a stranger. That is right and kind and good, and notwithstanding you said so many things to please me, there were none too many. I love praise too well always, and I have had a surfeit of some forms of it. Yours is of the kind that is treasured and remembered. I have written in every number of the Atlantic since it began. I should think myself industrious if I did not remember the labours you have gone through, which simply astonish me. What delight it would be to have you back here in our own circle of men — I think we can truly say whom you would find worthy companions: Agassiz, organising the science of a hemisphere; Longfellow, writing its songs; Lowell, than whom a larger, fresher, nobler, and more fertile nature does not move among us; Emerson, with his strange, familiar remoteness of character, I do not know what else to call it; and Hawthorne and Dana, when he gets back from his voyage round the world, and all the rest of us thrown in gratis. But you must not stay too long; if all the blood gets out of your veins, I am afraid you will transfer your allegiance.

I am just going to Cambridge to an “exhibition,” in which Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks a translation (expectatur versio in lingua vernacula), the Apology for Socrates; Master O. W. Holmes, Jun., being now a tall youth, almost six feet high, and lover of Plato and of Art.

I ought to have said something about your grand new book, but I have not had time to do more than read some passages from it. My impression is that of all your critics, that you have given us one of the noble historical pictures of our time, instinct with life and glowing with the light of a poetical imagination, which by itself would give pleasure, but which, shed over a great epoch in the records of our race, is at once brilliant and permanent. In the midst of so much that renders the very existence of a civilisation amongst us problematical to the scholars of the Old World, it is a great pleasure to have the cause of letters so represented by one of our own countrymen, citizens, friends. Your honours belong to us all, but most to those who have watched your upward course from the first, who have shared many of the influences which have formed your own mind and character, and who now regard you as the plenipotentiary of the true Republic accredited to every Court in Europe.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Volume 1, p. 340-2

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, July 29, 1861

July 29, 1861.

My Dear Charles, — I have your notes and the good news of Longfellow. A week ago Tom Appleton wrote me about himself and L–––. It was a very manly, touching letter. How glad I am that L––– is not crushed by the heavy blow!

No, nor am I nor the country by our blow. It is very bitter, but we had made a false start, and we should have suffered more dreadfully in the end had we succeeded now.

The "Tribune," as you see, has changed. There was a terrible time there. Its course was quite exclusively controlled by my friend, Charles Dana. The stockholders and Greeley himself at last rebelled and Dana was overthrown. It may lead to his leaving the “Tribune;” but for his sake I hope not.

As for blame and causes (for the defeat at Bull Run), they are in our condition and character. We have undertaken to make war without in the least knowing how. It is as if I should be put to run a locomotive. I am a decent citizen, and (let us suppose) a respectable man, but if the train were destroyed, who would be responsible? We have made a false start and we have discovered it. It remains only to start afresh.

The only difficulty now will be just that of which Mr. Cox’s resolutions are an evidence, the disposition to ask, “Will it pay?” And the duty is to destroy that difficulty by showing that peace is impossible without an emphatic conquest upon one side or the other. If we could suppose peace made as we stand now, we could not reduce our army by a single soldier. The sword must decide this radical quarrel. Why not within as well as without the Union? Then, if we win, we save all. If we lose, we lose no more.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 148-9

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Mead, June 12, 1864

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, June 12, 1864

In my last letter I gave you an account of a wicked and malicious falsehood which I found had been extensively circulated all through the North, and the first intimation of which was a reference to it in the Inquirer of the 2d inst. Since writing, I have received the enclosed message from the Secretary of War, to which I sent the accompanying note. I do not remember whether I ever told you that we were honored with the presence of Mr. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, who accompanies this army, as a kind of staff officer of the Secretary, and who keeps the Secretary advised by daily telegrams of the progress and condition of affairs. It is from Mr. Dana's telegrams that Mr. Stanton's despatches to General Dix are made up. This I learned accidentally, yesterday, in a conversation with Grant, in which I commented on some of Mr. Stanton's despatches. Grant agreed fully with me in my views, and then told me he had never sent a despatch to Mr. Stanton since crossing the Rapidan, the few despatches he had sent being directed to General Halleck. I was glad to hear this, because it removed from my mind a prejudice I had imbibed, on the supposition that Mr. Stanton was quoting Grant, and arising from the fact I have mentioned, that in all Mr. Stanton's despatches from Grant's headquarters my name was never alluded to; for which I had held Grant responsible, without cause.

I believe I have saved you some annoyance by informing an officer, who applied to me in the name of Mrs. Judge Daly, of New York, to know if you would not unite in the great woman's movement about dress, that, practically, you had been engaged in that movement ever since your marriage, and that at present your domestic duties were, from your large family, so absorbing, you really had no time to devote to public matters, even as important as the great woman's movement.

To-day we commence a flank march, to unite with Butler¹ on the James. If it is successful, as I think it will be, it will bring us to the last act of the Richmond drama, which I trust will have but few scenes in it, and will end fortunately and victoriously for us.

Both George² and myself are quite well, though the heat, hard service, bad water, and swampy regions are beginning to tell on the health of the army.

I send you an excellent picture of Sedgwick.

_______________

¹ General Benjamin F. Butler, commanding the Army of the James.

² Son of General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 203-4

Brigadier-General John A. Rawlins to Mary Emeline Hurlburt Rawlins, January 16, 1864

Nashville, Jan. 16, 1864.

I arrived here last night¹ and found all well and delighted to see me.  . . . I myself am still troubled with my cold. I mention this not to cause you uneasiness . . . but simply because I promised you I would write you the exact state of my health, whether good or bad, and this I shall always do. This morning was delightful, just cold enough to be bracing to those who sought the street for a stroll either for pleasure or business. Don't understand me to say there were any pleasure promenaders, for, dearest, if there ever was a city over which the shadow of gloom hung darkly it is this. It is literally the City of Woe. Nineteen out of twenty of the inhabitants are in mourning for friends who have been killed in battle.  . . . The very buildings seem to lift their darkened and dingy walls in consciousness of the gloom above them. . . .

I have just written a letter to General Ransom, one of my warmest and most intimate friends, and send you an extract from it. “While North, at Danbury, Connecticut, on the 23rd ultimo, I married Miss Mary E. Hurlbut, whom I met first at our headquarters in Vicksburg, where she had been during the siege, having gone South with friends previous to the outbreak of the rebellion.  . . . She was for the Union after my acquaintance with her and will instruct and educate my children in the spirit and sentiment of patriotism which I hope will always actuate them.” . . .

The following extract from a letter written by Mr. C. A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, to General Wilson I send you, knowing how pleased you are at everything said pleasantly of me. Don't, however, indulge in Mr. Dana's forebodings as to my health. “Mrs. Rawlins I had no opportunity of seeing, but I hope she will add nothing but happiness to the life of her most excellent husband. His appearance made me somewhat anxious about him. I feared that his lungs might be more seriously affected than I had supposed. His loss would be a great misfortune, not only for his friends, but still more for the country. Public servants of his quality will always be few. There are plenty of men whose names will flourish largely in history without having rendered a tithe of his unostentatious and invaluable contributions to the great work of the nation.”

_______________

¹ From the leave of absence which he took to be married.

SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 384-5

Charles A. Dana to Edwin M. Stanton, May 28, 1863

BEHIND VICKSBURG, May 28, 1863,

VIA MEMPHIS, May 30 – 9 p.m.

(Received June 1 – 3.15 a.m.)

The siege works progress satisfactorily. Sherman has his parallels completed to within 80 yards of the rebel fortifications. He is able to carry artillery and wagons with horses under cover to that point. McPherson's rifle-pits are at about the same distance from the forts in his front. On both these lines our sharpshooters keep the rebels under cover and never allow them to load a cannon. It is a mistake to say that the place is entirely invested. I made the complete circuit of the lines yesterday. The left is open in direction of Warrenton, so that the enemy have no difficulty in sending messengers in and out. Our force is not large enough to occupy the whole line and keep the necessary reserves and outposts at dangerous and important points; still, the enemy cannot either escape by that route or receive supplies. An officer who returned yesterday from a visit to Jackson with a flag of truce to take supplies to our wounded, found Loring there with his force, apparently reorganizing and ready for movement. The number he could not ascertain, but thought it was 5,000 at least. Loring, you may remember, escaped to the southeast with his division after the battle of Baker's Creek. The gunboat Cincinnati was disabled yesterday in a sharp engagement with the enemy's upper water battery, on Steele's front. She was compelled by discharges of grape to close her bow portholes, and in endeavoring to get away, swung her stern around toward the battery, when she was so badly hit that her commander ran her ashore, and she sank in shoal water. Some twenty-odd lives were lost. She may be raised and saved.

The weather is hot, but not at all oppressive.

C. A. DANA.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 1 (Serial No. 36), p. 90

Edwin M. Stanton to Charles A. Dana, June 5, 1863

WAR DEPARTMENT, June 5, 1863.

C. A. DANA, Esq., Grant's Headquarters, near Vicksburg:

Your telegrams up to the 30th have been received. Everything in the power of this Government will be put forth to aid General Grant. The emergency is not underrated here. Your telegrams are a great obligation, and are looked for with deep interest. I cannot thank you as much as I feel for the service you are now rendering. You have been appointed an assistant adjutant-general, with rank of major, with liberty to report to General Grant, if he needs you. The appointment may be a protection to you. I shall expect daily reports, if possible.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 1 (Serial No. 36), p. 93

Edwin M. Stanton to Charles A. Dana, January 24, 1862

WASHINGTON, January 24, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 22d only reached me this evening. The facts you mention were new to me, but there is too much reason to fear they are true. But that matter will, I think, be corrected very speedily.

You can not tell how much obligation I feel myself under for your kindness. Every man who wishes the country to pass through this trying hour should stand on watch, and aid me. Bad passions and little passions and mean passions gather around and hem in the great movements that should deliver this nation.

Two days ago I wrote you a long letter — a three pager — expressing my thanks for your admirable article of the 21st, stating my position and purposes; and in that letter I mentioned some of the circumstances of my unexpected appointment. But, interrupted before it was completed, I will not inflict, or afflict, you with it.

I know the task that is before us — I say us, because the Tribune has its mission as plainly as I have mine, and they tend to the same end. But I am not in the smallest degree dismayed or disheartened. By God's blessing we shall prevail. I feel a deep, earnest feeling growing up around me. We have no jokes or trivialities, but all with whom I act show that they are now in dead earnest.

I know you will rejoice to know this.

As soon as I can get the machinery of the office working, the rats cleared out, and the rat holes stopped we shall move. This army has got to fight or run away; and while men are striving nobly in the West, the champagne and oysters on the Potomac must be stopped. But patience for a short while only is all I ask, if you and others like you will rally around me.

Yours truly,

EDWIN M. STANTON.

C. A. DANA, Esq.

SOURCE: Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, p. 4-5

Major General William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, April 23, 1863

CAMP BEFORE VICKSBURG, April 23, 1863.

Last night another batch of transports were prepared to run Vicksburg batteries. In order to afford assistance to the unfortunate I crossed over through the submerged swamp with eight yawls, and was in the Mississippi about four miles below Vicksburg and three above Warrenton. The first boat to arrive was the Tigress, a fast side-wheel boat which was riddled with shot and repeatedly struck in the hull. She rounded to, tied to the bank and sunk a wreck; all hands saved. The next was the Empire City, also crippled but afloat, then the Cheeseman that was partially disabled, then the Anglo-Saxon and Moderator, both of which were so disabled that they drifted down stream catching the Warrenton batteries as they passed. The Horizon was the sixth and last, passed down about daylight. The Cheeseman took the Empire City in tow and went down just after day, catching thunder from the Warrenton batteries. Five of the six boats succeeded in getting by, all bound for Carthage, where they are designed to carry troops to Grand Gulf and some other point across the Mississippi. This is a desperate and terrible thing, floating by terrific batteries without the power of replying. Two men were mortally wounded and many lacerated and torn, but we could not ascertain the full extent of damage for we were trying to hurry them past the lower or Warrenton batteries before daylight. The only way to go to Carthage is by a bayou road from Milliken's Bend, and over that narrow road our army is to pass below Vicksburg, and by means of these boats pass on to the east side of the Mississippi. I look upon the whole thing as one of the most hazardous and desperate moves of this or any war. A narrow difficult road, liable by a shower to become a quagmire. A canal is being dug on whose success the coal for steamers, provisions for men and forage for animals must all be transported. McClernand's Corps has moved down. McPherson will follow, and mine comes last. I don't object to this, for I have no faith in the whole plan.

Politicians and all sorts of influences are brought to bear on Grant to do something. Hooker remains statu quo. Rosecrans is also at a deadlock, and we who are now six hundred miles [ahead] of any are being pushed to a most perilous and hazardous enterprise.

I did think our government would learn something by experience if not by reason. An order is received to-day from Washington to consolidate the old regiments. All regiments below 500, embracing all the old regiments which have been depleted by death and all sorts of causes, are to be reduced to battalions of five companies in each regiment; the colonel and major and one assistant-sergeant to be mustered out, and all the officers, sergeants and corporals of five companies to be discharged. This will soon take all my colonels, Kilby Smith, Giles Smith, and hundreds of our best captains, lieutenants and sergeants and corporals. Instead of drafting and filling up with privates, one half of the officers are to be discharged, and the privates squeezed into battalions. If the worst enemy of the United States were to devise a plan to break down our army, a better one could not be attempted. Two years have been spent in educating colonels, captains, sergeants and corporals, and now they are to be driven out of service at the very beginning of the campaign in order that governors may have a due proportion of officers for the drafted men. I do regard this as one of the fatal mistakes of this war. It is worse than a defeat. It is the absolute giving up of the chief advantage of two years' work. I don't know if you understand it, but believe you do. The order is positive and must be executed. It is now too late to help it, but I have postponed its execution for a few days to see if Grant won't suspend its operation till this move is made. All the old politician colonels have been weeded out by the progress of the war, and now that we begin to have some officers who do know something they must be discharged because the regiments have dwindled below one half the legal standard. We all know the President was empowered to do this, but took it for granted that he would fill up the ranks by a draft and leave us the services of the men who are now ready to drill and instruct them as soldiers. Last fall the same thing was done, that is new regiments were received instead of filling up the old ones, and the consequence was those new regiments have filled our hospitals and depots, and now again the same thing is to be repeated. It may be the whole war will be turned over to the negroes, and I begin to believe they will do as well as Lincoln and his advisers. I cannot imagine what Halleck is about. We have Thomas and Dana both here from Washington, no doubt impressing on Grant the necessity of achieving something brilliant. It is the same old Bull Run mania, but why should other armies be passive and ours pushed to destruction?

Prime is here and agrees with me; but we must drift on with events. We are excellent friends. Indeed, I am on the best of terms with everybody, but I avoid McClernand because I know he is envious and jealous of everybody who stands in his way. . . .  He now has the lead. Admiral Porter is there, and he is already calling “For God's sake, send down some one.” He calls for me — Grant has gone himself — went this morning. I know they have got this fleet in a tight place, Vicksburg above and Port Hudson below, and how are they to get out? One or other of the gates must be stormed and carried, or else none. I tremble for the result. Of course, it is possible to land at Grand Gulf and move inland, but I doubt the capacity of any channel at our command equal to the conveyance of the supplies for this army. This army should not all be here. The great part should be at or near Grenada moving south by land. . . .

SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of General Sherman, p. 253-6.  A full copy of this letter can be found in the William T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/03.

President Abraham Lincoln to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, August 9, 1863

Executive Mansion,

Washington, August 9, 1863.

My dear General Grant:

I see by a despatch of yours that you incline quite strongly towards an expedition against Mobile. This would appear tempting to me also, were it not that in view of recent events in Mexico, I am greatly impressed with the importance of re-establishing the national authority in Western Texas as soon as possible. I am not making an order, however. That I leave, for the present at least, to the General-in-Chief.

A word upon another subject. Gen. Thomas has gone again to the Mississippi Valley, with the view of raising colored troops. I have no reason to doubt that you are doing what you reasonably can upon the same subject. I believe it is a resource which, if vigorously applied now, will soon close the contest. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us. We were not fully ripe for it until the river was opened. Now, I think at least a hundred thousand can, and ought to be rapidly organized along it's [sic] shores, relieving all the white troops to serve elsewhere.

Mr. Dana understands you as believing that the emancipation proclamation has helped some in your military operations. I am very glad if this is so. Did you receive a short letter from me, dated the 13th of July?

Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN.

SOURCES: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 6, p. 374-5.  A draft of this letter can be found among The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 584.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant to Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, August 16, 1864

City Point, Virginia,

August 16, 1864.

YOUR letter asking for autographs to send to Mrs. Adams, the wife of our Minister to England, was duly received. She had also sent to Mr. Dana for the same thing, and his requisition, he being with me at the time, was at once filled. I have directed Colonel Bowers to send with this a few of the original dispatches telegraphed from here. They have all been hastily written, and not with the expectation of ever being seen afterward, but will, I suppose, answer as well as anything else, or as if they had been written especially for the purpose of sending. . . .

I state to all citizens who visit me that all we want now to insure an early restoration of the Union is a determined unity of sentiment North. The rebels have now in their ranks their last men. The little boys and old men are guarding prisoners, railroad bridges, and forming a good part of their garrisons for intrenched positions. A man lost by them cannot be replaced. They have robbed the cradle and the grave equally to get their present force. Besides what they lose in frequent skirmishes and battles, they are now losing from desertions and other causes at least one regiment per day. With this drain upon them the end is visible if we will but be true to ourselves. Their only hope now is in a divided North. This might give them reinforcements from Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, while it would weaken us. With the draft quietly enforced, the enemy would become despondent, and would make but little resistance. I have no doubt but the enemy are exceedingly anxious to hold out until after the presidential election. They have many hopes from its effects. They hope for a counter-revolution. They hope for the election of the peace candidate. In fact, like Micawber, they hope that something will turn up. Our peace friends, if they expect peace from separation, are much mistaken. It would be but the beginning of war, with thousands of Northern men joining the South because of the disgrace of our allowing separation. To have peace “on any terms” the South would demand the restoration of their slaves already freed. They would demand indemnity for losses sustained, and they would demand a treaty which would make the North slave-hunters for the South. They would demand pay or the restoration of every slave escaping to the North.

SOURCE: James Grant Wilson, Editor, General Grant’s Letters to a Friend 1861-1880, p. 38-40

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, April 10, 1863

CAMP BEFORE VICKSBURG, April 10, 1863.

Dear Brother:

. . . . . . . . . .

Mr. Dana is here. He spent a few hours with me yesterday, and I went over with him many of the events of the past year, with the maps and records with which I am well supplied. Indeed, all look to me for maps and facts. Dana remarked to one of Grant's staff incidentally, that he was better pleased with me than he could possibly have expected. In the two days he has been here he has seen an illustration of the truth of my proposition, which has drawn on me such volumes of abuse. We have had thousands of men working by night, putting batteries as close up to Vicksburg as possible, secretly, and in opening a channel by which we may in high water reach the river twenty-five miles below Vicksburg. Secrecy was essential, but the papers of Memphis announce the whole fact. I know the Memphis dailies go before daylight each day to Hernando, 25 miles, and are telegraphed to Vicksburg by noon of the same day. Indeed, the day before yesterday we met some Vicksburg officers, who asked that I should come with a flag of truce to discuss a point as to exchange of prisoners, and as we parted, one, a Major Watts, asked me not to open our batteries (the secret) last night, as he was going to have a party and did not want to be disturbed. . . .

Nothing can prevent the fatal practice, but excluding all men from our camp but men who must fight. They at least have a personal interest in what should be revealed and what concealed. . . .

Affectionately,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman letters: correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 198-9

Major General Ulysses S. Grant to Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, August 30, 1863

Vicksburg, Mississippi,

August 30, 1863.

YOUR letter of the 8th of August, inclosing one from Senator Wilson⁸ to you, reached here during my temporary absence to the northern part of my command; hence my apparent delay in answering. I fully appreciate all Senator Wilson says. Had it not been for General Halleck and Dana,⁹ I think it altogether likely I would have been ordered to the Potomac. My going could do no possible good. They have there able officers who have been brought up with that army, and to import a commander to place over them certainly could produce no good. While I would not positively disobey an order, I would have objected most vehemently to taking that command or any other, except the one I have. I can do more with this army than it would be possible for me to do with any other without time to make the same acquaintance with others I have with this. I know that the soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee can be relied on to the fullest extent. I believe I know the exact capacity of every general in my command to lead troops, and just where to place them to get from them their best services. This is a matter of no small importance. . . .

The people of the North need not quarrel over the institution of slavery. What Vice-President Stephens acknowledges the cornerstone of the Confederacy is already knocked out. Slavery is already dead, and cannot be resurrected. It would take a standing army to maintain slavery in the South if we were to make peace to-day, guaranteeing to the South all their former constitutional privileges. I never was an abolitionist, not even what could be called antislavery, but I try to judge fairly and honestly, and it became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace reestablished, I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this question is forever settled. Rawlins and Maltby¹⁰ have been appointed brigadier-generals. These are richly deserved promotions. Rawlins especially is no ordinary man. The fact is, had he started in this war in the line instead of in the staff, there is every probability he would be to-day one of our shining lights. As it is, he is better and more favorably known than probably any other officer in the army who has filled only staff appointments. Some men, too many of them, are only made by their staff appointments, while others give respectability to the position. Rawlins is of the latter class. My kind regards to the citizens of Galena.

__________

⁸Henry Wilson of Massachusetts (1812-1875), who in 1872 was elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with General Grant.

⁹Charles A. Dana (1819-1897), Assistant Secretary of War, and late editor of the New York Sun.

¹⁰Jasper A. Maltby (1826-1867), lieutenant colonel Forty-fifth Illinois Infantry, August, 1861; colonel, November 29, 1862, and brigadier general, August 4, 1863.

SOURCES: James Grant Wilson, Editor, General Grant’s Letters to a Friend 1861-1880, p. 27-9, 115;  James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 434

From Washington

WASHINGTON, April 22.

The Select Committee, to whom was referred the question of the loyalty of Senator Stark, of Oregon, reported to-day that he is disloyal to the Government of the United States, having found that for many months prior to this that he was an ardent advocate of the rebel cause, and after the formation of the rebel constitution openly declared his admirations for it, and warmly avowed his sympathy with the rebel cause.

A caucus of the Republicans in Congress is called for to-morrow night.

Gen. Wadsworth, the military Governor, has issued an order requiring all farm stock in Prince William, Loudon, Alexandria and Fairfax counties, Va., to be confined and carefully guarded, the destruction of the fences rendering this measure necessary for the cultivation of the land.

The oath of allegiance has been administered to Mansfield S. Walworth, Saratoga county, N. Y., a political prisoner at the old capital prison. He also gave his parole of honor that he would not aid the rebels in any manner.

The Secretary of the Treasury has directed all public treasurers and depositaries to receive no more temporary deposits at rates of interest exceeding four per cent.

Richmond papers of yesterday contain telegraph reports of the landing of our forces near Elizabeth City, N. C., and an engagement at that point. They admit that their forces retired to Dismal Swamp Canal, with the loss of thirty-eight killed and wounded, and say the Federal loss was heavy. They notice the occupation of Fredericksburg, and complain of the withdrawal of their troops, which were in force there, without a contest.

The general commanding at the Warrick Creek fight, whose reported condition on that occasion called forth representative Morrill’s resolution empowering the President to cashier drunken officers is said to be Wm. F. Smith. It is said that he fell from his horse twice, smearing his clothes and face with mud.

Mr. Morrill said that the two companies of Green Mountain Boys stood in the marsh fifty minutes without support or permission to retire.

Most of the friends of Mr. Bingham’s confiscation bill feel sanguine that the house will pass it, under the previous question to-morrow. It is believed the vote will be a rather close one.


Tribune’s Dispatch.

Several Vessels of the river flotilla have been up the Rappahannock, some of them as far as Fredericksburg. About nine miles above Tappahannock schooners had been sunk to obstruct the river, but Commander Wyman, in the Yankee, with his consorts pushed their way through. At one point the boats were fired upon by musketry. – No one on board was injured. Twelve or thirteen vessels, two of them steamers, were found in the creeks, and were seized and brought down stream. The river is now considered open for navigation, and timber for re-building the bridges burned by the rebels, will soon reach Falmouth.

Nothing is heard of the rebel force, but it is believed to be in force not far back of Fredericksburg.

The finance committee of the Senate has done with the machinery sections of the tax bill, having made such amendments as in its judgment were calculated to perfect the system adopted by the House. An effort was made to raise the tax on whisky and other distilled spirits to 25 cts. A gallon, but the committee retained it at 15 cts. The committee decides to impose some change on stock on hand on the 30th of June, when the act is to go into operation, but left it to a sub committee to decide how much it should be. The tax on beer and other fermented liquors will be $2 a barrel instead of $1. No other noteworthy changes have yet been made.

Chas. A. Dana, of N. Y., has been appointed, by Secretary Stanton, one of the commissioners to investigate the war accounts at Cairo.

Prof. Bache and Mr. Westervelt have declined to serve on the Board appointed to examine the Stevens battery.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, April 24, 1862, p. 2

Special to New York Papers

(Tribune’s Dispatch)

WASHISNGTON, April 22. – The General Commanding at the Warwick Creek fight whose reported condition on that occasion called forth Representative Morrill’s resolution empowering the President to cashier drunken officers is said to be Gen. Wm. F. Smith. It is stated that he fell from his horse twice, spearing his clothes and face with mud. Mr. Morrill said that the two companies of Green Mountain boys stood in the marsh fifty minutes without support or orders to retreat.

Most of the friends of Mr. Bingham’s confiscation bill feel sanguine that the House will pass it under the previous question tomorrow. It is believe that the vote will be a rather close one.

Several vessels of the river flotilla have been up the Rappahannock, some of them as far as Fredericksburg. About nine miles above the Tappahannock a schooner had been sunk to obstruct the river, but Commander Wigman in the Yankee, with his consorts, pushed their way through. At one point the boats were fired upon by musketry. No one on board was injured. Twelve or thirteen vessels, two of them steamers, found in creeks were brought down. The river is now considered open for navigation, and timber for rebuilding bridges burned by the rebels, will soon reach Falmouth. Nothing has been heard of the rebel force but it is supposed to be in force not far back of Fredericksburg.

The finance Committee of the Senate has done with the machinery sections of the tax bill, having made such amendments as in its judgment was calculated to perfect the system adopted by the House. An effort was made to raise the tax on whiskey and other distilled spirits to twenty five cents a gallon, but the committee decided to impose some charge on stock in hand on the 30th of June, when the act is to go into operation, but left it to a sub committee to decide how much it should be. The tax on beer and other fermented liquors will be two dollars a barrel instead of one dollar. No other changes have yet been made.

Charles A. Dana, of New York, has been appointed by Secretary Stanton as one of the Commissioners to investigate the war accounts at Cairo.

Professor Bache and Mr. Westervelt have declined to serve on the Board appointed to examine the Steven’ Battery.


(Times’ Dispatch.)

WASHINGTON, April 23. – An officer of artillery in town to night from near Warrenton Junction reports the rebels in strong force on the south bank of the Rappahannock in the direction of Gordonville. Gen. Ewell is said to be at the crossing of the river where the Railroad bridge was burned, with five hundred men. Gen. G. W. Smith is at Gordonville strongly entrenched, with thirty thousand men, and Gen. Jackson is crossing over from the Shenandoah Valley to unite 8,000 to the force, making it a total column of 46,000 men. If the figures are reliable we are in sufficient force in front of Manassas to manage this rebel army.

I am assured by a gentleman of this city whose position brings him in business contact with Mr. Mercier that his mission had reference only to a large amount of valuable tobacco belonging to the French Government. The property is known as the Belmont tobacco. While there it is said that M. Mercier examined somewhat into the condition of the bogus Confederacy, in order to report to the Emperor the true condition of things.


(Herald’s Special.)

WASHINGTON, April 23 – A change in the Navy Department has been positively determined upon. The President is waiting only to fix upon the individual who is to fill the place of Secretary of the Navy. Gen. Banks, Judge Davis, of Illinois, and Gov. Sprague, of Rhode Island are all strongly urged for this distinction, but the selection has not yet been made.


(Special to Post.)

The sensation story in the Philadelphia Inquirer of this morning, to the effect that Secretary Welles is to be removed is entirely untrue. This I learn on good authority. I learn that Mr. Welles sometime since tendered his resignation to the President, but it was not accepted. Probably this circumstance has given rise to the rumor of an immediate change in the Cabinet. All the current reports of the removal of Mr. Welles are destitute of foundation.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 3