* My first meeting with General Grant

     — a conference at Thomas’s headquarters — Grant’s manner of writing despatches — opening “the Cracker line” — Grant saluted by the enemy — Grant’s personal appearance

While sitting in my quarters in the little town of Chattanooga, Tennessee, about an hour after nightfall, Friday, October 23, 1863, an orderly brought me a message from General George H. Thomas, Commander of the Army of the Cumberland, on whose staff I was serving, summoning me to headquarters. A storm had been raging for two days, and a chilling rain was still falling. A few minutes’ walk brought me to the plain wooden, one-story dwelling occupied by the commander, which was situated on Walnut street, near Fourth, and upon my arrival I found him in the front room on the left side of the hall, with three members of his staff and several strange officers. In an arm-chair facing the fireplace was seated a general officer, slight in figure and of medium stature, whose face bore an expression of weariness. He was carelessly dressed, and his uniform coat was unbuttoned and thrown back from his chest. He held a lighted cigar in his mouth, and sat in a stooping posture, with his head bent slightly forward. His clothes were wet, and his trousers and top-boots were spattered with mud. General Thomas approached this officer, and, turning to me and mentioning me by name, said, “I want to present you to General Grant.” Thereupon the officer seated in the chair, without changing his position, glanced up, extended his arm to its full length, shook hands, and said in a low voice, and speaking slowly, “How do you do?” This was my first meeting with the man with whom I was destined afterward to spend so many of the most interesting years of my life.

The strange officers present were members of General Grant’s staff. Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, who had been for some time with the Army of the Cumberland, had also entered the room. The next morning he sent a despatch to the War Department, beginning with the words, “Grant arrived last night, wet, dirty, and well.”

On the 19th of October General Grant’s command had been enlarged so as to cover the newly created military division of the Mississippi, embracing nearly the entire field of operations between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River, and the Army of the Cumberland had thus been placed under his control. About a month before, that army, after having fought at Chickamauga one of the most gallantly contested and sanguinary battles in the annals of warfare, had fallen back and taken up a defensive position on the south side of the Tennessee River, inclosing within its lines the village of Chattanooga. The opposing forces, under General Bragg, had invested this position, and established such a close siege that the lines of supply had been virtually cut off, rations and forage were about exhausted, and almost the last tree-stump had been used for fuel. Most of the men were without overcoats, and some without shoes; ten thousand animals had died of starvation, and the gloom and despondency had been increased by the approach of cold weather and the appearance of the autumn storms.

General Grant, upon assuming the responsibilities of his new command, had fully realized the critical condition of the Army of the Cumberland, and had set out at once for its headquarters to take charge in person of its future operations. On his way to the front he had telegraphed General Thomas, from Louisville, to hold Chattanooga at all hazards, to which that intrepid soldier made the famous reply, “I will hold the town till we starve.”

General Grant had started, the day before the incident I have described, from Bridgeport, a place thirty miles below Chattanooga, where the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad crosses the Tennessee River, and had ridden by way of Walden’s Ridge, the only route left open by which communication could be had with the beleaguered town. We had been advised that he was on his way, but hardly expected that he would reach Chattanooga that night, considering the state of the weather, the wretched condition of the roads, or rather bridle-paths, over the mountain, and the severe injury to his leg which had been caused by a fall of his horse several weeks before, and from which he was still suffering. When he arrived he had to be lifted from his saddle, and was evidently experiencing much pain, as his horse had slipped in coming down the mountain, and had further injured the lame leg; but the general showed less signs of fatigue than might have been supposed after his hard ride of two days under such trying circumstances.

As soon as General Grant had partaken of a light supper immediately after his arrival, General Thomas had sent for several general officers and most of the members of his staff to come to headquarters, and the room soon contained an exceedingly interesting group. A member of General Thomas’s staff quietly called that officer’s attention to the fact that the distinguished guest’s clothes were pretty wet and his boots were thoroughly soaked with rain after his long ride through the storm, and intimated that colds were usually no respecters of persons. General Thomas’s mind had been so intent upon receiving the commander, and arranging for a conference of officers, that he had entirely overlooked his guest’s travel-stained condition; but as soon as his attention was called to it, all of his old-time Virginia hospitality was aroused, and he at once begged his newly arrived chief to step into a bedroom and change his clothes. His urgings, however, were in vain. The general thanked him politely, but positively declined to make any additions to his personal comfort, except to light a fresh cigar. Afterward, however, he consented to draw his chair nearer to the wood fire which was burning in the chimney-place, and to thrust his feet forward to give his top-boots a chance to dry. The extent of his indulgence in personal comfort in the field did not seem to be much greater than that of bluff old Marshal Suvaroff, who, when he wished to give himself over to an excess of luxury, used to go so far as to take off one spur before going to bed.

At General Grant’s request, General Thomas, General William F. Smith, his chief engineer, commonly known in the army as “Baldy” Smith, and others, pointed out on a large map the various positions of the troops, and described the general situation. General Grant sat for some time as immovable as a rock and as silent as the  sphinx, but listened attentively to all that was said. After a while he straightened himself up in his chair, his features assumed an air of animation, and in a tone of voice which manifested a deep interest in the discussion, he began to fire whole volleys of questions at the officers present. So intelligent were his inquiries, and so pertinent his suggestions, that he made a profound impression upon every one by the quickness of his perception and the knowledge which he had already acquired regarding important details of the army’s condition. His questions showed from the outset that his mind was dwelling not only upon the prompt opening of a line of supplies, but upon taking the offensive against the enemy. In this he was only manifesting one of his chief military characteristics — an inborn dislike to be thrown upon the defensive. Even when he had to defend a position, his method of warfare was always that of the “offensive-defensive.”

After talking over a plan for communicating with our base of supplies, or, as he called it in his conversation, “opening up the cracker line,” an operation which already had been projected and for which preliminary steps had been taken, he turned to me as chief of ordnance of the Army of the Cumberland, and asked, “How much ammunition is there on hand” I replied, “There is barely enough here to fight one day’s battle, but an ample supply has been accumulated at Bridgeport to await the opening of communications.”

At about half-past 9 o’clock he appeared to have finished his search after information for the time being, and turning to a table, began to write telegrams. Communication by wire had been kept open during all the siege. His first despatch was to General Halleck, the general-in-chief at Washington, and read: “Have just arrived; I will write to-morrow. Please approve  order placing Sherman in command of Department of the Tennessee, with headquarters in the field.” He had scarcely begun to exercise the authority conferred upon him by his new promotion when his mind turned to securing advancement for Sherman, who had been his second in command in the Army of the Tennessee.

It was more than an hour later when he retired to bed in an adjoining room to get a much-needed rest. As he arose and walked across the floor his lameness was very perceptible. Before the company departed he had made an appointment with Generals Thomas and Smith and several staff-officers to accompany him the next day to make a personal inspection of the lines. Early on the morning of the 24th the party set out from headquarters, and most of the day was spent in examining our lines and obtaining a view of the enemy’s position. At...