Beschreibung:

GRANT, Ulysses. Autograph letter signed ("U.S. Grant") as General in Chief, TO GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE (1815-1872), City Point, [VA], 14 July 1864. 5 pages, 8vo (8 x 4 15/16 in.), splitting to vertical fold between 2nd and 3rd leaves, discoloration along left margin of page 1, otherwise fine. CAMPAIGNING WITH GRANT BEFORE PETERSBURG: THE COMMANDING GENERAL ORDERS SHERIDAN AGAINST THE WELDON RAILROAD AND REPORTS ON NEWS FROM ATLANTA: "THEY LOOK UPON THE LOSS OF THAT PLACE AS PROBABLE" One month after his army besieged the city of Petersburg, General Ulysses S. Grant orders Sheridan to use his cavalry to operate against an important Confederate railroad and reports that Sherman will soon take Atlanta. Grant launched his bloody campaign in Virginia with the intent of hounding Lee's Army at every turn. Retreat would not be an option. When Grant was unable to break Lee's strong defensive lines at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, he simply moved his army beyond the Confederate flank and continued further south, knowing that Lee must stay between him and Richmond. Crossing the James River on June 12 upon a massive pontoon bridge constructed by his Engineer Corps, Grant could now strike at the Confederate capital by seizing the major railroad city of Petersburg that lay only a few miles to the South. Lee desperately shifted to meet the Union advance and, after preventing the occupation of the city, began to build trenches to protect it. Grant countered with parallel trenches. Within the next month, a massive system of entrenchments and fortifications had been constructed and the siege of Petersburg had begun. Rather than attack Lee's well-protected soldiers, Grant endeavored throughout the summer to further encircle the city, slowly cutting Lee off from supplies and escape to the south. A key Confederate supply line was the Weldon Railroad which ran directly south from the city. Here Grant orders the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Meade (1815-1872), to push Sheridan beyond the Weldon in hopes of further closing off Lee's Army: "If Sheridan succeeds in getting to Weldon, or near there, I did not suppose he would be able to get to the Danville road. If he could however, and could follow the road up to Danville and south of it making the destruction of both roads sufficient to last for a month or two it would be a good thing." Only a few days before Sherman's army entered the outskirts of Atlanta, Grant echoes the reports he has heard: "I see from Atlanta papers that they look upon the loss of that place as probable but congratulate themselves that Sherman could not stay a month if he had it." Voicing his concern about the possibility that the primary Confederate armies would unite, Grant speculates that: "[Joseph] Johnston will fall back to Macon, where he thinks he will not be followed for some time, and detach largely to join Lee's Army to drive us back when they can fall upon Sherman with an overwhelming force. To cut both roads far south therefore will be a great help to us." When Grant placed his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, he was careful to exert greater control over Meade than he had with Sherman as the former: "did not inspire him with the same confidence" (Marshall-Cornwall, Grant as Military Commander , p. 139). Here, Grant counsels Meade to avoid giving inflexible orders to his commanders: "I think Sheridan should simply be informed fully of the importance of complete and extended destruction of the enemy's roads and be left to execute it in his own way and with discretion to return in his own time with authority even to go into New Bern if he deems safety requiring it. The object of an Infantry force is to give him a fair start beyond much of the enemy's Infantry." He concludes, "If a corps can get on the rail-road between the rebel Cavalry and Infantry that would be sufficient. They might remain one day, destroying rail if not engaged with the enemy and then return moving well t