Post by Z451 on Dec 19, 2014 0:42:26 GMT
Ulysses S. Grant
On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
Two days later, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and a mass meeting was held in Galena to encourage recruitment.
Recognized as a military professional, Grant was asked to lead the ensuing effort.
Without any formal rank in the army, Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied the regiment to Springfield, the state capital.
During this time, Grant quickly perceived that the war would be fought for the most part by inexperienced volunteers and not professional soldiers.
Governor Richard Yates offered Grant a position recruiting and training volunteer units, which he accepted, but he still wanted a field command in the regular Army.
He made multiple efforts with contacts (including Major General George B. McClellan) to acquire such a position. McClellan flatly refused to meet Grant having remembered Grant's earlier reputation for drinking while stationed in California.
Meanwhile, he continued serving at the training camps and made a positive impression on the volunteer Union recruits.
With the aid of his advocate in Washington, Illinois congressman Elihu B. Washburne, Grant was formally promoted to Colonel on June 14, 1861, and put in charge of disciplining the unruly 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
To restore discipline Grant had one troublemaker bound and gagged to a post for being drunk and disorderly.
Transferred to northern Missouri, Lincoln promoted Grant to Brigadier General, backdated to May 17, 1861, again with Washburne's support.
Believing Grant was a general of "dogged persistence" and "iron will", Major General John C. Frémont assigned Grant command of troops near Cairo, Illinois by the end of August 1861.
Under Frémont's authority Grant advanced into Paducah and took the town without a fight.
Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Grant had not reacted strongly to Southern secession.
The news of the attack came as a shock in Galena, and Grant shared his neighbors' mounting concern about the onset of war.
After hearing a speech by his father's attorney, John Aaron Rawlins, Grant found renewed energy and belief in the Union cause.
Rawlins later became Grant's aide-de-camp and close friend during the war.
Grant recalled with satisfaction that after that first recruitment meeting in Galena, "I never went into our leather store again."
On November 7, 1861 Grant and his troops crossed the Mississippi to attack Confederates encamped in Belmont, Missouri.
Grant and his troops took the camp, but the reinforced Confederates under Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow forced a retreat to Cairo.
A tactical defeat, the battle nonetheless gave Grant and his volunteers confidence and experience.
After Belmont, Grant asked his new commander, Henry Halleck (Lincoln relieved Frémont of command) for permission to move against Fort Henry in Tennessee; Halleck agreed on condition that the attack be conducted with oversight by Union Navy Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote.
Grant's troops, in close cooperation with Foote's naval forces, defeated General Lloyd Tilghman and captured Fort Henry on February 6, 1862.
Emboldened by Lincoln's call for a general advance of all Union forces, Grant ordered an immediate advance on nearby Fort Donelson, this time without Halleck's permission.
On February 15, Grant and Foote met stiff resistance from the Confederate forces under Pillow.
Reinforced by 10,000 troops, Grant's army totaled 25,000 troops against 12,000 Confederates.
Foote's first approach was repulsed, and the Confederates attempted a breakout, pushing Grant's right flank into disorganized retreat.
Grant rallied his troops, resumed the offensive, retook the Union right, and attacked Pillow's left.
Pillow ordered Confederate troops back into the fort and relinquished command to Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who surrendered to Grant the next day.
Lincoln promoted Grant to major-general of volunteers while the Northern press treated Grant as a hero repeating his words "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender."
Encamped on the western bank of the Tennessee River, Grant's army, known as the Army of the Tennessee, had grown to 48,894 troops.
Grant met with Brigadier General William T. Sherman, and the two readied their troops to attack the Confederate army of roughly equal strength at Corinth, Mississippi.
The Confederates, led by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard, struck first on April 6, 1862, attacking the five divisions of Grant's army bivouacked nine miles south at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh.
Grant's troops challenged the Confederate onslaught, but were unable to halt it.
At day's end, the Confederates captured one Union division while the remaining Union army was vulnerable and might have been destroyed.
The Confederates, however, stopped fighting due to exhaustion and having lacked reinforcements to continue the battle.
At dawn, Grant counterattacked, adding 20,000 fresh troops from Major General Don Carlos Buell and Lew Wallace's divisions.
The Confederates were forced to retreat back to Corinth.
Grant was criticized for failing to entrench and for high casualties on the first day of battle; as a result, Halleck removed Grant from active command of his army.
The battle was the costliest in American history to date, with total casualties of 23,746, but Lincoln dismissed Grant's critics, saying "I can't spare this man; he fights."
Discouraged and disappointed, Grant considered resigning his commission, but Sherman convinced him to stay. Seven weeks later, Halleck's forces took Corinth and Grant was reinstated as field commander of the Army of the Tennessee.
On September 19, 1862 Grant's Union forces defeated Confederates at the Battle of Iuka and on October 4, successfully defended Corinth; inflicting heavy casualties on the Confederate Army.
Located on the high bluffs of the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was the key to Union victory in the West; both Lincoln and Grant were determined to take the central Confederate stronghold.
Lincoln authorized Major General John A. McClernand to raise an army in his home state of Illinois for the purpose.
Grant was aggravated to learn by newspaper rumors of Lincoln's appointment of McClernand believing one commander was best for the campaign.
In November 1862 Grant did support Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, by giving specific orders to incorporate contraband African American slaves into the Union war effort, giving them clothes, shelter, and paid wages for their services.
Besides the Vicksburg campaign, Grant was in charge of the cotton trade in his military district.
On December 17, 1862 Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews, as a class, from Grant's military district, believing Jewish merchants were profiteering from an illicit cotton exchange through enemy lines while Union soldiers died in the fields.
After the Jewish community and Northern press criticized Grant over his military order Lincoln demanded the order be revoked Grant rescinded the order, having lasted twenty-one days, while the controversy subsided.
Grant's biographer, Jean Edward Smith, wrote that Grant's order was "one of the most blatant examples of state-sponsored anti-Semitism in American history."
Halleck ordered McClernand to Memphis, Grant's new headquarters.
Lincoln, convinced by Halleck, told McClernand that he was to be satisfied with leading an army division under Grant's authority.
In December 1862, Grant moved to take Vicksburg by an overland route, with a joint water expedition on the Mississippi led by Sherman.
Confederate cavalry raiders stalled the advance by capturing his Union supply depot, while the Confederate army led by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton concentrated and repulsed Sherman's direct approach to Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou.
McClernand's attempt to advance was equally unsuccessful.
Grant then made a series water movements and diggings attempting to bypass Vicksburg guns; however, these proved to be unsuccessful.
On April 16, 1863, in a bold gamble, Grant successfully ran Admiral David Porter's Union gunboats south under direct fire of the Confederate Vicksburg batteries to meet up with his Union troops who he marched south down the west side of the Mississippi River.
Grant ordered diversionary battles, confusing Pemberton and allowing Grant's army to cross east over the Mississippi landing Union troops at Bruinsburg.
Continuing east he captured Jackson, the state capital and a railroad supply center.
At the Battle of Champion Hill, Pemberton's army was defeated, and forced to retreat into Vicksburg.
After Grant assaulted the Vicksburg entrenchments twice, suffering severe losses, he settled in for a siege lasting seven weeks.
As the siege began, Grant lapsed into a two-day drinking episode for which he was later criticized.
With Grant's forces maintaining the siege, Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to him on July 4, 1863.
The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union Army control over the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.
Although the success at Vicksburg was a great morale boost for the Union war effort, Grant received criticism for his decisions and his reported drunkenness.
The personal rivalry between McClernand and Grant continued after Vicksburg, until Grant removed McClernand from command when he contravened Grant by publishing a military order without permission.
When Stanton suggested Grant be brought back east to run the Army of the Potomac, Grant refused, writing to Washington that he knew the geography and resources of the West better and he did not want to upset the chain of command in the East.
Lincoln commissioned Grant a major general in the Regular Army and assigned him command of the newly formed Division of the Mississippi in October 1863, that included the Armies of Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland.
After the Battle of Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga trapped inside the city desperate for relief.
When informed of the situation, Grant put Major General George H. Thomas in charge of the besieged army.
Taking command, Grant arrived in Chattanooga by horseback implementing plans to relieve the siege and resume the offensive.
Lincoln also sent Major General Joseph Hooker and two divisions of the Army of the Potomac to assist.
Union forces captured Brown's Ferry and opened a supply line to Bridgeport.
On November 23, 1863, Grant organized three armies to attack at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.
On November 25, Hooker's forces in the early morning successfully attacked and overtook Lookout Mountain.
Grant ordered Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland to advance when Sherman's army failed to take Missionary Ridge from the northeast.
The Army of the Cumberland, led by Major General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, charged uphill capturing the Confederate entrenchments on top of the ridge, forcing the rebels into disorganized retreat.
The decisive battle allowed Union control of Tennessee and opened Georgia, the heartland of the Confederacy, to Union invasion.
On March 3, 1864 Lincoln promoted Grant to Lieutenant General, giving him command of all Union Armies.
Grant assigned Sherman the Division of the Mississippi and traveled east to Washington D.C. meeting with Lincoln to devise total war strategies against the Confederacy.
After settling Julia into a house in Georgetown, Grant established his headquarters with Meade's army in Culpeper, Virginia.
Grant and Lincoln devised a strategy of coordinated Union offensives, attacking the rebel armies at the same time to keep the Confederates from shifting reinforcements within their interior lines.
Sherman would attack Atlanta, while Meade would lead the Army of the Potomac, with Grant in camp, to attack Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
Major General Benjamin Butler was to advance towards Richmond from the south, by way of the James River.
Depending on Lee's actions, Grant would join forces with Butler's armies and be fed supplies from the James.
Major General Franz Sigel was to capture the railroad line at Lynchburg, move east, and attack from the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Grant knew that Lee had limited manpower and that a war of attrition fought on a battlefield without entrenchments would lead to Lee's defeat.
Grant was riding a rising tide of popularity, and there was talk that a Union victory early in the year could open his candidacy for the presidency.
Grant was aware of the rumors, but had ruled out a political candidacy; the possibility would soon vanish with delays on the battlefield.
Sigel's and Butler's efforts sputtered, and Grant was left alone to fight Lee in a series of bloody battles known as the Overland Campaign.
Grant crossed the Rapidan River on May 4, 1864, and attacked Lee in the Battle of the Wilderness, a hard-fought three-day battle with many casualties.
Rather than retreat as his predecessors had done, Grant flanked Lee's army to the southeast and attempted to wedge the Union Army between Lee and Richmond at Spotsylvania.
Lee's army got to Spotsylvania first, and a costly battle ensued, lasting thirteen days.
During the battle, Grant attempted to break through Lee's line of defense, resulting in one of the bloodiest assaults during the Civil War, known as the Battle of the Bloody Angle.
Unable to break Lee's defenses after repeated attempts, Grant flanked the Confederate army to the southeast again at North Anna, a battle that lasted three days.
This time the Confederate Army had a defensive advantage on Grant.
Grant then maneuvered the Union Army to Cold Harbor, a vital railroad hub that linked to Richmond, but Lee's men were again able to entrench against the Union assault.
During the third day of the thirteen-day battle, Grant led a costly assault on Lee's trenches.
As casualty reports became known in the North, heavy criticism fell on Grant, who was castigated "the Butcher" by the Northern press after taking 52,788 casualties in thirty days since crossing the Rapidan.
Lee's army suffered 32,907 casualties, and he was less able to replace them.
The costly assault at Cold Harbor was the second of two battles in the war that Grant later said he regretted.
Unknown to Lee, Grant pulled out of Cold Harbor and moved his army south of the James River, freed Butler from the Bermuda Hundred (where the rebels had surrounded his army) and attacked Petersburg, Richmond's central railroad hub.
After crossing the James River undetected, Grant and the Army of the Potomac advanced southward to capture Petersburg.
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard was able to defend the city, and Lee's veteran reinforcements soon arrived.
The result was a long nine-month siege of Petersburg, stalling the advance.
Northern resentment grew as the war dragged on, but an indirect benefit of the Petersburg siege was that Lee was unable to reinforce armies opposing Sherman and Sheridan.
During the siege, Sherman took Atlanta, a victory that advanced President Lincoln's reelection.
Sheridan was assigned command of the Union Army of the Shenandoah and Grant directed him to "follow the enemy to their death".
Lee had sent General Jubal Early up the Shenandoah Valley to attack the federal capital and draw troops away from the Army of the Potomac, but Sheridan defeated Early, ensuring that Washington would not be endangered.
Grant then ordered Sheridan's cavalry to destroy vital Confederate supplies in the Shenandoah Valley.
When Sheridan reported suffering attacks by irregular Confederate cavalry under John S. Mosby, Grant recommended rounding up their families for imprisonment as hostages at Fort McHenry.
Grant, his forces reduced in number after sending troops north to fend off Early's attack, approved of a plan to blow up part of the enemy trenches from an underground tunnel.
The explosion created a crater from which Confederates could easily pick off Union troops below.
The 3500 Union casualties outnumbered the Confederates' by three-to-one; although the plan could have been successful if implemented correctly, Grant admitted the tactic had been a "stupendous failure."
On August 9, 1864, Grant, who had just arrived at his headquarters in City Point, narrowly escaped death when Confederate spies blew up an ammunition barge moored below the city's bluffs.
Rather than fight Lee on a full frontal attack as he had done at Cold Harbor, Grant continued to extend Lee's defenses south and west of Petersburg, to capture vital railroad links.
As Grant continued to push the Union advance westward, Lee's lines became overstretched and undermanned.
After the Federal army rebuilt the City Point Railroad, Grant was able to use mortars to attack Lee's entrenchments.
Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.
Once Sherman reached the East Coast and Thomas dispatched Hood in Tennessee, Union victory appeared certain, and Lincoln attempted to negotiate an end to the war with the Confederates.
He enlisted Francis Preston Blair to carry a message to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Davis and Lincoln each appointed commissioners, but the conference soon stalled.
Grant contacted Lincoln, who agreed to personally meet with the commissioners at Fort Monroe.
The peace conference that took place near Union-controlled Fort Monroe was ultimately fruitless, but represented Grant's first foray into diplomacy.
In March 1865, while Lincoln met at City Point with Grant, Sherman, and Porter, Union forces finally took Petersburg.
They captured Richmond that April. Lee's troops began deserting in large numbers; disease and lack of supplies also diminished the remaining Confederate armies.
Lee attempted to link up with the remnants of Joseph E. Johnston's defeated army, but Union cavalry forces led by Sheridan were able to stop the two armies from converging.
Lee and his army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
Grant gave generous terms; Confederate troops surrendered their weapons and allowed to return to their homes with their mounts, on the condition that they would not take up arms against the United States.
Within a few weeks, the Civil War was over.
Links
Wikipedia
Changing Minds.org
Grant Homepage
Record:
W:
L:
Two days later, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and a mass meeting was held in Galena to encourage recruitment.
Recognized as a military professional, Grant was asked to lead the ensuing effort.
Without any formal rank in the army, Grant helped recruit a company of volunteers and accompanied the regiment to Springfield, the state capital.
During this time, Grant quickly perceived that the war would be fought for the most part by inexperienced volunteers and not professional soldiers.
Governor Richard Yates offered Grant a position recruiting and training volunteer units, which he accepted, but he still wanted a field command in the regular Army.
He made multiple efforts with contacts (including Major General George B. McClellan) to acquire such a position. McClellan flatly refused to meet Grant having remembered Grant's earlier reputation for drinking while stationed in California.
Meanwhile, he continued serving at the training camps and made a positive impression on the volunteer Union recruits.
With the aid of his advocate in Washington, Illinois congressman Elihu B. Washburne, Grant was formally promoted to Colonel on June 14, 1861, and put in charge of disciplining the unruly 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
To restore discipline Grant had one troublemaker bound and gagged to a post for being drunk and disorderly.
Transferred to northern Missouri, Lincoln promoted Grant to Brigadier General, backdated to May 17, 1861, again with Washburne's support.
Believing Grant was a general of "dogged persistence" and "iron will", Major General John C. Frémont assigned Grant command of troops near Cairo, Illinois by the end of August 1861.
Under Frémont's authority Grant advanced into Paducah and took the town without a fight.
Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Grant had not reacted strongly to Southern secession.
The news of the attack came as a shock in Galena, and Grant shared his neighbors' mounting concern about the onset of war.
After hearing a speech by his father's attorney, John Aaron Rawlins, Grant found renewed energy and belief in the Union cause.
Rawlins later became Grant's aide-de-camp and close friend during the war.
Grant recalled with satisfaction that after that first recruitment meeting in Galena, "I never went into our leather store again."
On November 7, 1861 Grant and his troops crossed the Mississippi to attack Confederates encamped in Belmont, Missouri.
Grant and his troops took the camp, but the reinforced Confederates under Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow forced a retreat to Cairo.
A tactical defeat, the battle nonetheless gave Grant and his volunteers confidence and experience.
After Belmont, Grant asked his new commander, Henry Halleck (Lincoln relieved Frémont of command) for permission to move against Fort Henry in Tennessee; Halleck agreed on condition that the attack be conducted with oversight by Union Navy Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote.
Grant's troops, in close cooperation with Foote's naval forces, defeated General Lloyd Tilghman and captured Fort Henry on February 6, 1862.
Emboldened by Lincoln's call for a general advance of all Union forces, Grant ordered an immediate advance on nearby Fort Donelson, this time without Halleck's permission.
On February 15, Grant and Foote met stiff resistance from the Confederate forces under Pillow.
Reinforced by 10,000 troops, Grant's army totaled 25,000 troops against 12,000 Confederates.
Foote's first approach was repulsed, and the Confederates attempted a breakout, pushing Grant's right flank into disorganized retreat.
Grant rallied his troops, resumed the offensive, retook the Union right, and attacked Pillow's left.
Pillow ordered Confederate troops back into the fort and relinquished command to Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who surrendered to Grant the next day.
Lincoln promoted Grant to major-general of volunteers while the Northern press treated Grant as a hero repeating his words "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender."
Encamped on the western bank of the Tennessee River, Grant's army, known as the Army of the Tennessee, had grown to 48,894 troops.
Grant met with Brigadier General William T. Sherman, and the two readied their troops to attack the Confederate army of roughly equal strength at Corinth, Mississippi.
The Confederates, led by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard, struck first on April 6, 1862, attacking the five divisions of Grant's army bivouacked nine miles south at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh.
Grant's troops challenged the Confederate onslaught, but were unable to halt it.
At day's end, the Confederates captured one Union division while the remaining Union army was vulnerable and might have been destroyed.
The Confederates, however, stopped fighting due to exhaustion and having lacked reinforcements to continue the battle.
At dawn, Grant counterattacked, adding 20,000 fresh troops from Major General Don Carlos Buell and Lew Wallace's divisions.
The Confederates were forced to retreat back to Corinth.
Grant was criticized for failing to entrench and for high casualties on the first day of battle; as a result, Halleck removed Grant from active command of his army.
The battle was the costliest in American history to date, with total casualties of 23,746, but Lincoln dismissed Grant's critics, saying "I can't spare this man; he fights."
Discouraged and disappointed, Grant considered resigning his commission, but Sherman convinced him to stay. Seven weeks later, Halleck's forces took Corinth and Grant was reinstated as field commander of the Army of the Tennessee.
On September 19, 1862 Grant's Union forces defeated Confederates at the Battle of Iuka and on October 4, successfully defended Corinth; inflicting heavy casualties on the Confederate Army.
Located on the high bluffs of the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was the key to Union victory in the West; both Lincoln and Grant were determined to take the central Confederate stronghold.
Lincoln authorized Major General John A. McClernand to raise an army in his home state of Illinois for the purpose.
Grant was aggravated to learn by newspaper rumors of Lincoln's appointment of McClernand believing one commander was best for the campaign.
In November 1862 Grant did support Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, by giving specific orders to incorporate contraband African American slaves into the Union war effort, giving them clothes, shelter, and paid wages for their services.
Besides the Vicksburg campaign, Grant was in charge of the cotton trade in his military district.
On December 17, 1862 Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews, as a class, from Grant's military district, believing Jewish merchants were profiteering from an illicit cotton exchange through enemy lines while Union soldiers died in the fields.
After the Jewish community and Northern press criticized Grant over his military order Lincoln demanded the order be revoked Grant rescinded the order, having lasted twenty-one days, while the controversy subsided.
Grant's biographer, Jean Edward Smith, wrote that Grant's order was "one of the most blatant examples of state-sponsored anti-Semitism in American history."
Halleck ordered McClernand to Memphis, Grant's new headquarters.
Lincoln, convinced by Halleck, told McClernand that he was to be satisfied with leading an army division under Grant's authority.
In December 1862, Grant moved to take Vicksburg by an overland route, with a joint water expedition on the Mississippi led by Sherman.
Confederate cavalry raiders stalled the advance by capturing his Union supply depot, while the Confederate army led by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton concentrated and repulsed Sherman's direct approach to Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou.
McClernand's attempt to advance was equally unsuccessful.
Grant then made a series water movements and diggings attempting to bypass Vicksburg guns; however, these proved to be unsuccessful.
On April 16, 1863, in a bold gamble, Grant successfully ran Admiral David Porter's Union gunboats south under direct fire of the Confederate Vicksburg batteries to meet up with his Union troops who he marched south down the west side of the Mississippi River.
Grant ordered diversionary battles, confusing Pemberton and allowing Grant's army to cross east over the Mississippi landing Union troops at Bruinsburg.
Continuing east he captured Jackson, the state capital and a railroad supply center.
At the Battle of Champion Hill, Pemberton's army was defeated, and forced to retreat into Vicksburg.
After Grant assaulted the Vicksburg entrenchments twice, suffering severe losses, he settled in for a siege lasting seven weeks.
As the siege began, Grant lapsed into a two-day drinking episode for which he was later criticized.
With Grant's forces maintaining the siege, Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to him on July 4, 1863.
The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union Army control over the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.
Although the success at Vicksburg was a great morale boost for the Union war effort, Grant received criticism for his decisions and his reported drunkenness.
The personal rivalry between McClernand and Grant continued after Vicksburg, until Grant removed McClernand from command when he contravened Grant by publishing a military order without permission.
When Stanton suggested Grant be brought back east to run the Army of the Potomac, Grant refused, writing to Washington that he knew the geography and resources of the West better and he did not want to upset the chain of command in the East.
Lincoln commissioned Grant a major general in the Regular Army and assigned him command of the newly formed Division of the Mississippi in October 1863, that included the Armies of Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland.
After the Battle of Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga trapped inside the city desperate for relief.
When informed of the situation, Grant put Major General George H. Thomas in charge of the besieged army.
Taking command, Grant arrived in Chattanooga by horseback implementing plans to relieve the siege and resume the offensive.
Lincoln also sent Major General Joseph Hooker and two divisions of the Army of the Potomac to assist.
Union forces captured Brown's Ferry and opened a supply line to Bridgeport.
On November 23, 1863, Grant organized three armies to attack at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.
On November 25, Hooker's forces in the early morning successfully attacked and overtook Lookout Mountain.
Grant ordered Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland to advance when Sherman's army failed to take Missionary Ridge from the northeast.
The Army of the Cumberland, led by Major General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, charged uphill capturing the Confederate entrenchments on top of the ridge, forcing the rebels into disorganized retreat.
The decisive battle allowed Union control of Tennessee and opened Georgia, the heartland of the Confederacy, to Union invasion.
On March 3, 1864 Lincoln promoted Grant to Lieutenant General, giving him command of all Union Armies.
Grant assigned Sherman the Division of the Mississippi and traveled east to Washington D.C. meeting with Lincoln to devise total war strategies against the Confederacy.
After settling Julia into a house in Georgetown, Grant established his headquarters with Meade's army in Culpeper, Virginia.
Grant and Lincoln devised a strategy of coordinated Union offensives, attacking the rebel armies at the same time to keep the Confederates from shifting reinforcements within their interior lines.
Sherman would attack Atlanta, while Meade would lead the Army of the Potomac, with Grant in camp, to attack Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
Major General Benjamin Butler was to advance towards Richmond from the south, by way of the James River.
Depending on Lee's actions, Grant would join forces with Butler's armies and be fed supplies from the James.
Major General Franz Sigel was to capture the railroad line at Lynchburg, move east, and attack from the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Grant knew that Lee had limited manpower and that a war of attrition fought on a battlefield without entrenchments would lead to Lee's defeat.
Grant was riding a rising tide of popularity, and there was talk that a Union victory early in the year could open his candidacy for the presidency.
Grant was aware of the rumors, but had ruled out a political candidacy; the possibility would soon vanish with delays on the battlefield.
Sigel's and Butler's efforts sputtered, and Grant was left alone to fight Lee in a series of bloody battles known as the Overland Campaign.
Grant crossed the Rapidan River on May 4, 1864, and attacked Lee in the Battle of the Wilderness, a hard-fought three-day battle with many casualties.
Rather than retreat as his predecessors had done, Grant flanked Lee's army to the southeast and attempted to wedge the Union Army between Lee and Richmond at Spotsylvania.
Lee's army got to Spotsylvania first, and a costly battle ensued, lasting thirteen days.
During the battle, Grant attempted to break through Lee's line of defense, resulting in one of the bloodiest assaults during the Civil War, known as the Battle of the Bloody Angle.
Unable to break Lee's defenses after repeated attempts, Grant flanked the Confederate army to the southeast again at North Anna, a battle that lasted three days.
This time the Confederate Army had a defensive advantage on Grant.
Grant then maneuvered the Union Army to Cold Harbor, a vital railroad hub that linked to Richmond, but Lee's men were again able to entrench against the Union assault.
During the third day of the thirteen-day battle, Grant led a costly assault on Lee's trenches.
As casualty reports became known in the North, heavy criticism fell on Grant, who was castigated "the Butcher" by the Northern press after taking 52,788 casualties in thirty days since crossing the Rapidan.
Lee's army suffered 32,907 casualties, and he was less able to replace them.
The costly assault at Cold Harbor was the second of two battles in the war that Grant later said he regretted.
Unknown to Lee, Grant pulled out of Cold Harbor and moved his army south of the James River, freed Butler from the Bermuda Hundred (where the rebels had surrounded his army) and attacked Petersburg, Richmond's central railroad hub.
After crossing the James River undetected, Grant and the Army of the Potomac advanced southward to capture Petersburg.
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard was able to defend the city, and Lee's veteran reinforcements soon arrived.
The result was a long nine-month siege of Petersburg, stalling the advance.
Northern resentment grew as the war dragged on, but an indirect benefit of the Petersburg siege was that Lee was unable to reinforce armies opposing Sherman and Sheridan.
During the siege, Sherman took Atlanta, a victory that advanced President Lincoln's reelection.
Sheridan was assigned command of the Union Army of the Shenandoah and Grant directed him to "follow the enemy to their death".
Lee had sent General Jubal Early up the Shenandoah Valley to attack the federal capital and draw troops away from the Army of the Potomac, but Sheridan defeated Early, ensuring that Washington would not be endangered.
Grant then ordered Sheridan's cavalry to destroy vital Confederate supplies in the Shenandoah Valley.
When Sheridan reported suffering attacks by irregular Confederate cavalry under John S. Mosby, Grant recommended rounding up their families for imprisonment as hostages at Fort McHenry.
Grant, his forces reduced in number after sending troops north to fend off Early's attack, approved of a plan to blow up part of the enemy trenches from an underground tunnel.
The explosion created a crater from which Confederates could easily pick off Union troops below.
The 3500 Union casualties outnumbered the Confederates' by three-to-one; although the plan could have been successful if implemented correctly, Grant admitted the tactic had been a "stupendous failure."
On August 9, 1864, Grant, who had just arrived at his headquarters in City Point, narrowly escaped death when Confederate spies blew up an ammunition barge moored below the city's bluffs.
Rather than fight Lee on a full frontal attack as he had done at Cold Harbor, Grant continued to extend Lee's defenses south and west of Petersburg, to capture vital railroad links.
As Grant continued to push the Union advance westward, Lee's lines became overstretched and undermanned.
After the Federal army rebuilt the City Point Railroad, Grant was able to use mortars to attack Lee's entrenchments.
Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.
Once Sherman reached the East Coast and Thomas dispatched Hood in Tennessee, Union victory appeared certain, and Lincoln attempted to negotiate an end to the war with the Confederates.
He enlisted Francis Preston Blair to carry a message to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Davis and Lincoln each appointed commissioners, but the conference soon stalled.
Grant contacted Lincoln, who agreed to personally meet with the commissioners at Fort Monroe.
The peace conference that took place near Union-controlled Fort Monroe was ultimately fruitless, but represented Grant's first foray into diplomacy.
In March 1865, while Lincoln met at City Point with Grant, Sherman, and Porter, Union forces finally took Petersburg.
They captured Richmond that April. Lee's troops began deserting in large numbers; disease and lack of supplies also diminished the remaining Confederate armies.
Lee attempted to link up with the remnants of Joseph E. Johnston's defeated army, but Union cavalry forces led by Sheridan were able to stop the two armies from converging.
Lee and his army surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
Grant gave generous terms; Confederate troops surrendered their weapons and allowed to return to their homes with their mounts, on the condition that they would not take up arms against the United States.
Within a few weeks, the Civil War was over.
Links
Wikipedia
Changing Minds.org
Grant Homepage
Record:
W:
L: