Beschreibung:

GRANT, Ulysses S. Autograph letter signed ("U. S. Grant"), as Lt. General, to Gen. Henry W. Halleck, City Point, Va., 15 July 1864. 4 pages, 4to, on stationery of Head Quarters Armies of the United States, very subtle repairs to crease . GRANT RECOMMENDS DRASTIC NEW TACTICS, IN THE WAKE OF THE EMBARASSMENT OF EARLY'S WASHINGTON RAID: HE ORDERS HUNTER TO MAKE "THE VALLEYS SOUTH OF THE B. & O. ROAD A DESERT" WHILE SHERMAN WILL "TAKE EVERYTHING THE PEOPLE HAVE" Grant strategizes with Halleck asking for more troops and planning harsh tactics for Sherman and Hunter to use in the Shenandoah and in the South. In this long and vivid letter Grant reacts to the embarrassing and alarming raid of Jubal Early into Maryland, which had reached all the way to the earthworks just outside Washington. "In view of the possible recurrence of the late raid into Maryland I would suggest the following precautions be taken. First: there should be an immediate call for all the troops we are likely to require." Grant wants "schools of instruction" set up close to the major Army encampments--Washington, Baltimore and Harper's Ferry for troops raised in the east; and Nashville, Decatur and Stevenson for those in the west. "By doing this we always have the benefit of our increased forces and they in turn improve more rapidly by contact with veteran troops." Grant then considers the situation of Sherman, poised to take Atlanta. He wants Halleck to send "all the rolling stock that can possibly be got" to Sherman. "There is every indication now, judging from the tone of the Southern press, that unless Johnson is reinforced Atlanta will not be defended. They seem to calculate largely upon driving Sherman out by keeping his lines of communication cut." But if supplies could be moved from Nashville to Chattanooga, then Sherman would be adequately supplied for sixty days, and Grant has "no doubt but the country will supply the balance." Looking forward--prematurely--to the fall of Atlanta, Grant goes on to say: "Sherman will, once in Atlanta, devote himself to collecting the resources of the country. He will take every thing the people have and will then issue from the stores so collected to rich and poor alike. As he will take all their stock, they will have no use for grain further than is necessary for bread." Grant worries that if Johnson quits Atlanta, he'd move north, unite with Lee and then turn against Sherman with a much stronger force. "They will fail if they attempt this programme," Grant predicts. But his "greatest fear is of their sending troops to Johnston first." Grant wants David Hunter to make sure it doesn't happen. In his characteristically clear and blunt way, he lays out a harsh plan of destruction: "If Hunter cannot get to Gordonsville & Charlottesville to cut the railroads he should make all the valleys south of the B. & O. road a desert as high up as possible. I do not mean that houses should be burnt but every particle of provision and stock should be removed and the people notified to move out." July 1864 proved to be one of the most difficult chapters of the war. A year earlier, the great victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg seemed to spell the doom of the Confederacy. Congress had started making plans for reconstruction of the rebel states. But, a year later, Union forces received a series of rude shocks. Jubal Early brought his cavalrymen to the outskirts of Washington on 11 July 1864, causing panic in the Capitol. Sherman's advance stalled in Georgia. Lincoln heeded Grant's call for more "boots on the ground" and asked for 500,000 new volunteers. This only inflamed antiwar sentiment in the North and demoralized even those who supported the war. Was the Union winning the war or losing it? Was reunion and emancipation worth such a heavy toll in human slaughter? This was also the season of Horace Greeley's ham-fisted try at brokering peace talks between Washington and Richmond. Lincoln could easily swat Greeley away, but he sensed