Beschreibung:

GRANT, ULYSSES S., President . Autograph letter signed ("U.S. Grant"), consisting of Grant's transcription of his letter to Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner, "Head Quarters in the Field, Fort Donelson," Tennessee, 16 February 1862 [the transcript misdated 1863]. 1 page, 8vo, 199 x 123 mm. (7 7/8 x 4 7/8 in.), integral blank, the blank professionally inlaid to a larger sheet, matted. GRANT'S FAMOUS DEMAND FOR "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" AT FORT DONELSON One of the best-known of Grant's wartime letters, marking a crucial moment in his rise to command in the Union army and forever giving him the unofficial moniker "Unconditional Surrender Grant." Grant writes: "Yours of this date proposing an armistice and the appointment of rommissioners to settle on the terms of capitulation is just received. "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works...." Ironically, Buckner and Grant were old West Point classmates. A Kentuckian, Buckner turned down commands in both Union and Confederate armies until his home state was invaded by Federal troops, then accepted a Brigadier General's commission in the Confederate Army. In February, Grant moved in force against the key Confederate strongholds of Forts Henry and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, to open routes for a planned invasion of the Southern heartland. Fort Henry surrendered on 6 February and General A.S. Johnston ordered two divisions under Buckner to Fort Donelson, to delay Grant's army so that the main Confederate army in Bowling Green could withdraw in safety. Grant's force marched overland and invested Fort Donelson on the 12th. The senior Confederate commander, William Floyd (former Secretary of War under Buchanan), and Generals Pillow and Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped the Union encirclement with about 3,000 infantry and cavalry, leaving Buckner (third in rank in the original garrison) surrounded, short of supplies and outnumbered nearly two to one by Federals. Perceiving the hopelessness of his situation, Buckner wrote to Grant under flag of truce: "In consideration of all the circumstances governing the present situation of affairs at the station I propose...the appointment of Commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces and fort under my command, and in that view suggest an armistice...." His letter was delivered to Grant by General C.F. Smith "before daylight," according to Grant. According to some sources, after reading Buckner's letter, Grant asked General Smith for his suggestion: "No terms to the rebels!" Smith is supposed to have replied. Grant then penned the present letter. Buckner, who had perhaps expected more liberal terms from his old colleague, replied: "The distribution of the forces under my command, incident to an unexpected change of commanders, and the overwhelming force under your command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you propose" (both of Buckner's letters are reproduced in Grant, Memoirs , ed. J. Y. Simon, Lib. of America edn., 1990, pp.209 and 211). Grant's men entered Fort Donelson unopposed. As Grant relates: "I had been at West Point three years with Buckner and afterwards served with him in the army, so that we were quite well acquainted. In the course of our conversation, which was very friendly, he said to me that had he been in command I would not have got up to Donelson as easily as I did. I told him that if he had been in command I should not have tried in the way I did..." ( ibid. , p.212). Grant also notes that "the news of the fall of Fort Donelson caused great delight all over the North. At the South, particularly in Richmond, the effect was correspondingly depressing. I was promptly promoted to the grade of Major-General of Volunteers..." ( ibid. , p.214). And, he might have added, his demand for "unconditional and immedia