On the 10th I visited the headquarters of the Army of the
Potomac at Brandy Station; then returned to Washington, and pushed west at once
to make my arrangements for turning over the commands there and giving general
directions for the preparations to be made for the spring campaign.
It had been my intention before this to remain in the West,
even if I was made lieutenant-general; but when I got to Washington and saw the
situation it was plain that here was the point for the commanding general to
be. No one else could, probably, resist the pressure that would be brought to
bear upon him to desist from his own plans and pursue others. I determined,
therefore, before I started back to have Sherman advanced to my late position,
McPherson to Sherman's in command of the department, and Logan to the command
of McPherson's corps. These changes were all made on my recommendation and
without hesitation. My commission as lieutenant-general was given to me on the
9th of March, 1864. On the following day, as already stated, I visited General
Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, at his headquarters at Brandy
Station, north of the Rapidan. I had known General Meade slightly in the
Mexican war, but had not met him since until this visit. I was a stranger to
most of the Army of the Potomac, I might say to all except the officers of the
regular army who had served in the Mexican war. There had been some changes
ordered in the organization of that army before my promotion. One was the
consolidation of five corps into three, thus throwing some officers of rank out
of important commands. Meade evidently thought that I might want to make still
one more change not yet ordered. He said to me that I might want an officer who
had served with me in the West, mentioning Sherman specially, to take his
place. If so, he begged me not to hesitate about making the change. He urged
that the work before us was of such vast importance to the whole nation that
the feeling or wishes of no one person should stand in the way of selecting the
right men for all positions. For himself, he would serve to the best of his
ability wherever placed. I assured him that I had no thought of substituting
any one for him. As to Sherman, he could not be spared from the West.
This incident gave me even a more favorable opinion of Meade
than did his great victory at Gettysburg the July before. It is men who wait to
be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may always expect the most
efficient service.
Meade's position afterwards proved embarrassing to me if not
to him. He was commanding an army and, for nearly a year previous to my taking"
command of all the armies, was in supreme command of the Army of the
Potomacexcept from the authorities at Washington. All other general
officers occupying similar positions were independent in their commands so far
as any one present with them was concerned. I tried to make General Meade's
position as nearly as possible what it would have been if I had been in
Washington or any other place away from his command. I therefore gave all
orders for the movements of the Army of the Potomac to Meade to have them
executed. To avoid the necessity of having to give orders direct, I established
my headquarters near his, unless there were reasons for locating them
elsewhere. This sometimes happened, and I had on occasions to give orders
direct to the troops affected. On the 11th I returned to Washington and, on the
day after, orders were published by the War Department placing me in command of
all the armies. I had left Washington the night before to return to my old
command in the West and to meet Sherman whom I had telegraphed to join me in
Nashville.
Sherman assumed command of the military division of the
Mississippi on the i8th of March, and we left Nashville together for
Cincinnati. I had Sherman accompany me that far on my way back to Washington so
that we could talk over the matters about which I wanted to see him, without
losing any more time from my new command than was necessary. The first point
which I wished to discuss was particularly about the co-operation of his
command with mine when the spring campaign should commence. There were also
other and minor points, minor as compared with the great importance of the
question to be decided by sanguinary warthe restoration to duty of
officers who had been relieved from important commands, namely McClellan,
Burnside and Fremont in the East, and Buell, McCook, Negley and Crittenden in
the West.
Some time in the winter of 1863-64 I had been invited by the
general-in-chief to give my views of the campaign I thought advisable for the
command under menow Sherman's. General J. E. Johnston was defending
Atlanta and the interior of Georgia with an army, the largest part of which was
stationed at Dalton, about 38 miles south of Chattanooga. Dalton is at the
junction of the railroad from Cleveland with the one from Chattanooga to
Atlanta.
There could have been no difference of opinion as to the
first duty of the armies of the military division of the Mississippi.
Johnston's army was the first objective, and that Important railroad centre,
Atlanta, the second. At the time I wrote General Halleck giving my views of the
approaching campaign, and at the time I met General Sherman, it was expected
that General Banks would be through with the campaign which he had been ordered
upon before my appointment to the command of all the armies, and would be ready
to co-operate with the armies east of the Mississippi, his part in the
programme being to move upon Mobile by land while the navy would close the
harbor and assist to the best of its ability. The plan therefore was for
Sherman to attack John- ston and destroy his army if possible, to capture
Atlanta and hold it, and with his troops and those of Banks to hold a line
through to Mobile, or at least to hold Atlanta and command the railroad running
east and west, and the troops from one or other of the armies to hold important
points on the southern road, the only east and west road that would be left in
the possession of the enemy. This would cut the Confederacy in two again, as
our gaining possession of the Mississippi River had done before. Banks was not
ready in time for the part assigned to him, and circumstances that could not be
foreseen determined the campaign which was afterwards made, the success and
grandeur of which has resounded throughout all lands.
In regard to restoring officers who had been relieved from
important commands to duty again, I left Sherman to look after those who had
been removed in the West while I looked out for the rest. I directed, however,
that he should make no assignment until I could speak to the Secretary of War
about the matter. I shortly after recommended to the Secretary the assignment
of General Buell to duty. I received the assurance that duty would be offered
to him ; and afterwards the Secretary told me that he had offered Buell an
assignment and that the latter had declined it, saying that it would be
degradation to accept the assignment offered. I understood afterwards that he
refused to serve under either Sherman or Canby because he had ranked them both.
Both graduated before him and ranked him in the old army. Sherman ranked him as
a brigadier-general. All of them ranked me in the old army, and Sherman and
Buell did as brigadiers. The worst excuse a soldier can make for declining
service is that he once ranked the commander he is ordered to report to.
On the 23d of March I was back in Washington, and on the
26th took up my headquarters at Culpeper Court-House, a few miles south of the
headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
Although hailing from Illinois myself, the State of the
President, I never met Mr. Lincoln until called to the capital to receive my
commission as lieutenant- general. I knew him, however, very well and favorably
from the accounts given by officers under me at the West who had known him all
their lives. I had also read the remarkable series of debates between Lincoln
and Douglas a few years before, when they were rival candidates for the United
States Senate. I was then a resident of Missouri, and by no means a " Lincoln
man " in that contest; but I recognized then his great ability.
In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated to me
that he had never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns
should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them: but that
procrastination on the part of commanders, and the pressure from the people at
the North and Congress, which was always with him, forced him into issuing his
series of " Military Orders "one, two, three, etc. He did not know but
they were all wrong, and did know that some of them were. All he wanted or had
ever wanted was some one who would take the responsibility and act, and call on
him for all the assistance needed, pledging himself to use all the power of the
government in rendering such assistance. Assuring him that I would do the best
I could with the means at hand, and avoid as far as possible annoying him or
the War Department, our first interview ended.
The Secretary of War I had met once before only, but felt
that I knew him better.
While commanding in West Tennessee we had occasionally held
conversations over the wires, at night, when they were not being otherwise
used. He and General Halleck both cautioned me against giving the President my
plans of campaign, saying that he was so kind-hearted, so averse to refusing
anything asked of him, that some friend would be sure to get from him all he
knew. I should have said that in our interview the President told me he did not
want to know what I proposed to do. But he submitted a plan of campaign of his
own which he wanted me to hear and then do as I pleased about. He brought out a
map of Virginia on which he had evidently marked every position occupied by the
Federal and Confederate armies up to that time. He pointed out on the map two
streams which empty into the Potomac, and suggested that the army might be
moved on boats and landed between the mouths of these streams. We would then
have the Potomac to bring our supplies, and the tributaries would protect our
flanks while we moved out. I listened respectfully, but did not suggest that
the same streams would protect Lee's flanks while he was shutting us up.
I did not communicate my plans to the President, nor did I
to the Secretary of War or to General Halleck.
March the 26th my headquarters were, as stated, at Culpeper,
and the work of preparing for an early campaign commenced. |