by H. W. Brands
Grant suspected a ploy, an effort by Davis to buy time. The envoys had wanted an armistice until the talks ended; Grant refused, with Lincoln’s approval. “The peace feeling within the rebel lines is gaining ground rapidly,” he wrote Sherman. “This, however, should not relax our energies in the least, but should stimulate us to greater activity.”
Sherman didn’t require the encouragement. His army rolled north from Savannah, extending the swath of destruction it had wrought across Georgia. In the third week of February it approached Columbia. “General Howard will cross the Saluda and Broad Rivers as near their mouths as possible, occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but will spare libraries and asylums and private dwellings,” Sherman ordered. Howard and his men did cross the rivers and occupy the city; they destroyed the public buildings, railroad property and machine shops.
But the libraries, asylums and private dwellings were not wholly spared. On the night of February 17 a fire spread across much of the city. Most of those who experienced the blaze had never seen the like. “The northern and western sky was not only all aflame, but the air was filled with myriad sparks and burning brands,” one eyewitness recalled. “They fell upon the wooden house-tops; they dashed against the windowpanes, lurid with reflected light; they fell in showers into the garden and among the trees; they mingled with the eddying dust which whirled along the street. It was the rain of fire, which is so sublimely expressed in music, in that grand oratorio—‘Israel in Egypt.’ ” Residents and property owners felt the destruction personally. “Oh, that long twelve hours!” diarist Emma LeConte recorded the next day. “Never surely again will I live through such a night of horrors. The memory of it will haunt me as long as I shall live—it seemed as if the day would never come. The sun arose at last, dim and red through the thick, murky atmosphere. It set last night on a beautiful town full of women and children—it shone dully down this morning on smoky ruins and abject misery.”
LeConte and other South Carolinians had heard stories of Sherman’s brutal practices; the burning of their homes suggested he was indeed the monster described. “This is the way the ‘cultured’ Yankee nation wars upon women and children!” she wrote. “Failing with our men in the field, this is the way they must conquer!…One expects these people to lie and steal, but it does seem such an outrage even upon degraded humanity that those who practice such wanton and useless cruelty should call themselves men. It seems to us even a contamination to look at these devils. Think of the degradation of being conquered and ruled by such a people! It seems to me now as if we would choose extermination.”
Sherman denied responsibility for the fire and set his men to work dousing the flames. He suggested that the retreating Confederates had ignited the cotton stored in the city, lest the Federals seize it, and that the high wind that evening had spread the flames. “If I had made up my mind to burn Columbia I would have burnt it with no more feeling than I would a common prairie dog village,” he testified later. “But I did not do it.”
Others blamed the chaos of the moment. Union general Oliver Howard asserted that his efforts to restore order did little good. “During the night I met Logan and Wood and other general officers, and they were taking every possible measure to stop the fire and prevent disorder. Nevertheless, some escaped prisoners, convicts from the penitentiary just broken open, army followers, and drunken soldiers ran through house after house and were doubtless guilty of all manner of villainies, and it was these men that, I presume, set new fires farther to the windward in the northern part of the city.”
Grant didn’t worry about culpability or weep for Columbia. “One thing is certain,” he wrote long after the embers, if not the passions, had cooled. “As soon as our troops took possession, they at once proceeded to extinguish the flames to the best of their ability with the limited means at hand. In any case, the example set by the Confederates in burning the village of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania”—in July 1864—“would seem to make a defense of the act of firing the seat of government of the state most responsible for the conflict then raging, not imperative.”
48
EVEN IF THE WINTER RAINS HAD NOT RENDERED THE ROADS AROUND Richmond impassable, Grant would have been reluctant to attack the fortified position Lee occupied. “Whilst the enemy holds nearly all his force for the defense of Richmond and Petersburg, the object to be gained by attacking entrenchments is not worth the risk to be run,” he explained to George Meade. “In fact, for the present it is much better for us to hold the enemy where he is than to force him south.” Sherman was proceeding north through the Carolinas; Sheridan was coming from the west. “To drive the enemy from Richmond now would be to endanger the success of these two columns.” Patience was the virtue of the moment; when Sherman and Sheridan arrived would be the time to attack Lee.
Yet patience came hard. Sherman’s operations once more took him out of reach of telegraph. “I feel no doubt of the result with him,” Grant told a friend, “but cut loose as he is I necessarily feel anxious. As long as Sherman is individually safe, his army will be. But an unlucky ball to touch him would materially mar the prospects of his army. Sherman has immortalized his name and that of the army he commands. It would be too unfortunate now to have anything occur to prevent him, and those under him, enjoying their laurels.” Grant didn’t like to think about such an occurrence, but he couldn’t help it. “My anxiety will be intense until I hear directly from Sherman.”
A letter from Lee moderated Grant’s anxiety somewhat. “Lieutenant General Longstreet has informed me,” Lee wrote on March 2, “that in a recent conversation between himself and Major General Ord as to the possibility of arriving at a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by means of a military convention, General Ord stated that if I desired to have an interview with you on the subject, you would not decline, provided I had authority to act. Sincerely desiring to leave nothing untried which may put an end to the calamities of war, I propose to meet you at such convenient time and place as you may designate.” Lee added, “In such event, I am authorized to do whatever the result of the proposed interview may render necessary or advisable.”
Grant read the letter as indicating Lee’s desperation, and so he put him off to let the desperation deepen. “General Ord and General Longstreet have probably misunderstood what I said,” he replied. Grant had sent Ord to talk to Longstreet about an exchange of prisoners; he hadn’t told Ord to invite broader discussions. Perhaps Ord had done so on his own; perhaps Longstreet had embellished what Ord said. Most likely, Grant surmised, Lee simply took the prisoner talks as an opportunity to suggest a more comprehensive negotiation.
In any case, Grant lacked authority to discuss any but the narrowest military questions. “General Ord could only have meant that I would not refuse an interview on any subject on which I have a right to act, which of course would be such as are purely of a military character,” he told Lee.
Grant could, of course, have asked for broader authority. But now was not the time. Writing to Stanton, he said, “I can assure you that no act of the enemy will prevent me pressing all advantages gained, to the utmost of my ability.”
A week later Grant stood uncomfortably aboard a steamboat in the James River at City Point. He had dressed more formally for the occasion than was his headquarters habit, for his companions that evening included Elihu Washburne and a number of other dignitaries visiting from Washington. Washburne carried the gold medal that had been struck by order of Congress to reward Grant for his services in Tennessee the previous year. Washburne warmly thanked and congratulated Grant, and he read a letter from Lincoln. “Please accept, for yourself and all under your command, the renewed expression of my gratitude for your and their arduous and well-performed public service,” the president said.
Grant scarcely heard the words. All he could think of was that he would have to give a speech in reply. He reached in his pocket for the paper on which he ha
d scribbled a couple of sentences, which he now mumbled in a voice so low as to be barely audible even to those standing beside him. “I accept the medal and joint resolutions of Congress which the President has commissioned you to deliver to me,” he told Washburne rather than the audience. “I will do myself the honor at an early date to acknowledge the receipt of the letter of the President accompanying them, and to communicate, in orders, to the officers and soldiers who served under my command prior to the passage of the resolution, the thanks so generously tendered to them by the Congress of the United States.”
He pocketed the paper and made for the door of the vessel’s parlor. But his escape was interrupted when Julia, who had joined him at City Point, suggested a dance in her husband’s honor. A military band was conveniently aboard, and a consensus supported the commanding general’s wife. “The officers soon selected their partners from among the ladies present, and the evening’s entertainment was continued to a late hour,” Horace Porter recalled. Grant sat awkwardly to the side. Julia tried to get him to waltz with her, and Grant’s staff lightheartedly urged him to please her. He resisted all entreaties until the band struck up a square dance reel. “He went through the cotillion,” Porter observed, “not as gracefully as some of the beaux among the younger officers present, but did his part exceedingly well, barring the impossibility of his being able to keep exact time with the music.”
The party broke up too late for Washburne and the others to leave for Washington. The congressman awoke early the next day—a Sunday—and readied his razor and soap brush for a shave. He looked about for a mirror, only to discover that his guest quarters lacked such amenity. He walked the short distance to Grant’s office, where he found a mirror but not the general. He lathered up and raised his blade for the first stroke. Suddenly a woman burst into the room. “Save him! Oh, save him!” she cried, throwing herself at Washburne’s feet. “He’s my husband!”
Washburne was so startled that he nearly sliced his neck. “What’s all this about your husband?” he demanded as he regained his composure.
“Oh, General! For God’s sake, save my husband!” she said.
“Why, my good woman,” he said, “I’m not General Grant.”
“Yes you are; they told me this was your room. Oh, save him, General, they’re to shoot him this very day for desertion if you don’t stop them.”
Washburne reiterated that he wasn’t Grant, but he listened to the woman explain how her husband had taken unauthorized leave to visit her, how he had been arrested and court-martialed and how he was to be executed, all for the love of her. Washburne tried to comfort the woman, who merely cried more loudly than ever.
At this point Grant entered the room. He had heard the commotion and wondered what it meant. “The spectacle presented partook decidedly of the serio-comic,” Horace Porter recalled. “The dignified member of Congress was standing in his shirt-sleeves in front of the pleading woman, his face covered with lather, except the swath which had been made down his right cheek; the razor was uplifted in his hand, and the tears were starting out of his eyes as his sympathies began to be worked upon. The woman was screaming and gesticulating frantically, and was almost hysterical with grief. I entered at the front door about the same time that the general entered from the rear, and it was hard to tell whether one ought to laugh or cry at the sight presented.”
Grant took charge of the situation. He convinced the woman that he, not Washburne, was the commanding general, and he said that her husband would be pardoned. He sent the order and the man was rescued just in time.
Spring’s arrival brought the war’s end closer. The rains diminished and the roads began to dry out. “We are now having fine weather and I think will be able to wind up matters about Richmond soon,” Grant wrote his father just before the equinox. “The rebellion has lost its vitality, and if I am not much mistaken there will be no rebel army of any great dimensions a few weeks hence.”
Sherman resurfaced in North Carolina, having extended his track of destruction from Columbia. “I have never felt any uneasiness for your safety,” Grant wrote Sherman with imperfect candor. “But I have felt great anxiety to know just how you were progressing. I knew, or thought I did, that with the magnificent Army with you, you would come out safely someplace.” Phil Sheridan closed in from the west, and Grant directed him to sever Lee’s last links to other parts of the Confederacy. “Your problem will be to destroy the South Side and Danville roads,” Grant wrote. Sheridan might incidentally keep an eye out for Joe Johnston’s army, which was between him and Sherman. “This, however, I care but little about, the principal thing being the destruction of the only two roads left to the enemy at Richmond.”
Sheridan’s thrust would shape what Grant did with the rest of the Army of the Potomac. “When this movement commences I shall move out by my left with all the force I can, holding present entrenched lines,” he told Sherman. “I shall start with no distinct view further than holding Lee’s forces from following Sheridan. But I shall be along myself”—rather than acting through Meade, whom he didn’t quite trust to handle the endgame—“and will take advantage of anything that turns up. If Lee detaches I will attack, or if he comes out of his lines I will endeavor to repulse him and follow it up to best advantage.”
Grant confessed he couldn’t quite fathom Lee. “It is most difficult to understand what the rebels intend to do,” he told Sherman. “So far but few troops have been detached from Lee’s army. Much machinery has been sent to Lynchburg, showing a disposition to go there.” Lee himself remained at Richmond.
On March 24 Grant issued detailed orders for his leftward movement, to begin on the 29th. He prescribed provisions, the route, the order of march—and the duty of those who wouldn’t be making the march. “A large part of the armies operating against Richmond are left behind,” he explained. “The enemy, knowing this, may, as an only chance, strip their lines to the merest skeleton in the hope of advantage not being taken of it, whilst they hurl everything upon the moving column.… It cannot be impressed too strongly upon commanders of troops left in the trenches not to allow this to occur without taking advantage of it. The very fact of the enemy coming out to attack, if he does so, might be regarded as almost conclusive evidence of such a weakening of his lines.”
Lee did what Grant anticipated, only sooner. On March 25 Lee launched a surprise attack on Grant’s right wing, against a part of the Petersburg line covered by Fort Stedman. Lee’s purpose was to compel Grant to send reinforcements from his left, which was Lee’s real target. He agreed with Grant that Richmond had become untenable; he wanted to break out of the city and head southwest. Grant’s weakened left would be his escape route.
The attack on Fort Stedman began by stealth. Confederate troops slipped silently across the narrow gap between the lines and surprised the Union defenders. Before Grant could react, the Confederates had captured the fort and turned its guns against the Union positions nearby. But there the attack stalled. Grant’s gunners returned the fire, and the Confederates in Fort Stedman found themselves bombarded from left and right. Their only hope was to press forward and get to the Union rear. This the Confederate rank and file refused to attempt. Rather than risk their lives in what appeared an ultimately hopeless task, they huddled in Fort Stedman and allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. “In the fight today we captured 2700 of the enemy and killed and wounded a great number,” Grant reported matter-of-factly that afternoon.
The plans for Grant’s own operation unfolded on schedule. He brought Sherman and Sheridan to City Point for a last-minute conference. The three generals met with Lincoln, who had come down from Washington. “The President was not very cheerful,” Sheridan recalled. “In fact he was dejected, giving no indication of his usual means of diversion, by which (his quaint stories) I had often heard he could find relief from his cares.” Lincoln had been informed of the broad outline of the move to the left, and he worried that Lee would hit once more at Grant’s right, perhaps ta
king City Point. “I answered that I did not think it at all probable that General Lee would undertake such a desperate measure to relieve the strait he was in,” Sheridan recounted. “General Grant would give Lee all he could attend to on the left.”
Sherman and Sheridan possessed strong wills, which became evident in their meeting with Grant. Sherman thought Sheridan, after destroying the Confederate railroads, should bring his cavalry south to help him crush Johnston; then they would move north together and join Grant for the destruction of Lee’s army. Sheridan objected strenuously and profanely. His soldiers belonged to the Army of the Potomac, he said, not to Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee. The former, having fought Lee for three years, deserved the right to defeat him without the help of Sherman’s westerners. And he—Sheridan—should be in at the kill.
Grant let Sherman present his case and Sheridan rebut, and he proceeded to split the difference, with some misdirection. He wrote Sheridan an order that concluded: “After having accomplished the destruction of the two railroads which are now the only avenues of supply to Lee’s army, you may return to this army selecting your road further south, or you may go into North Carolina and join General Sherman.” He let Sherman think that Sheridan would choose the latter course, while he told Sheridan that the suggestion of a rendezvous between him and Sherman was a ploy. “This portion of your instructions I have put in merely as a blind.” He explained that he didn’t want to advertise the move to the left as the final stroke of the war before it merited such a description. Even now defeatists in the North would take any misstep as an excuse to resume their peacemongering. But his true aims were bolder. “I told him that, as a matter of fact, I intended to close the war right here, with this movement, and that he should go no farther,” Grant recalled. “His face at once brightened up, and slapping his hand on his leg he said, ‘I am glad to hear it, and we can do it.’ ”