A General Who Will Fight by Harry S. Laver

Author:Harry S. Laver [Laver, Harry S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813141282
Google: BCEzwAEACAAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2012-01-15T16:07:32+00:00

6

The Overland Campaign

There is no fall back with U. S. Grant.

—A New York soldier

By January 1864, the nation had endured two and a half years of a tragic civil war, including some of the most traumatic political, economic, and social convulsions the country had ever witnessed. These disruptions paled in comparison to the loss of life and the physical and emotional wounds inflicted on both soldier and civilian, and no honest person could look ahead and see the nightmare’s end. For those charged with prosecuting the war, there was no respite, and, as far as Ulysses S. Grant was concerned, the quickest, if not the only, way to end the war was to fight—fight today, fight tomorrow, and tomorrow again, until the Confederates had no fight left. Grant’s commitment to the relentless pursuit and destruction of the enemy would reach its zenith in 1864, a year that began with the momentum in the Union camp, thanks to the victory at Chattanooga.

Despite having his plans for an immediate drive on Mobile thwarted by Halleck’s caution, in January Grant informed George Thomas that, “at the earliest possible moment in the Spring,” his Army of the Cumberland would strike out from Chattanooga for Mobile by going through Atlanta, then Montgomery, Alabama. But the first matter of business was taking care of Longstreet’s force, which remained in East Tennessee. “Old Pete’s” Confederates were more of a nuisance than a real threat, but their presence could disrupt Grant’s campaign plans. Moreover, Halleck wanted Longstreet driven out of Tennessee and into Virginia, so Grant set part of his army moving, sending off Maj. Gen. John Schofield’s men. “I deem it of the utmost importance to drive Longstreet out immediately,” he telegraphed Schofield, “so as . . . to prepare for a Spring Campaign of our own choosing instead of permitting the enemy to dictate it for us.” To Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey, who was organizing new troops in Indianapolis, Grant shared his expectation that “we will have some sharp fighting in the spring, and if successful, I believe the war will be ended within the year; if the enemy gain temporary advantage, the war will be protracted.” Implicit in both messages was Grant’s determination to maintain the initiative when the war resumed in earnest that spring.1

Grant’s focus and drive in the West were in sharp contrast to the Federals’ situation in Washington, where dissatisfaction and impatience were growing with the Army of the Potomac and General-in-Chief Halleck. Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson, an engineering officer and member of Grant’s staff, advised his commander in early February, “No hope is entertained that the Army of the Potomac can or will do much. It must be regenerated.” President Lincoln expressed similar concerns about Halleck’s lethargic prosecution of the war, recalling that Halleck had demanded full control over all military assets on taking command but that, since the Union’s drubbing by Lee at Second Bull Run in August 1862, the general-in-chief had “shrunk from responsibility whenever it was possible.

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