CHAPTER XXII. GRANT AT THE HEAD of all our armies-SHERMAN APPOINTED OVER GRANT'S DEPARTMENT WEST-A SURVEY OF THE WHOLE FIELD-FARRAGUT AT MOBILE-CALL FOR FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN-BUTLER'S FAILURE before RICHMOND THE EXPEDITION INTO FLORIDA UNDER GENERAL SEYMOUR— BATTLE OF OLUSTEE-KILPATRICK'S BOLD ATTEMPT TO LIBERATE OUR PRISONERS IN RICHMOND-DEATH OF COLONEL DAHLGREN-FORREST'S RAID IN KENTUCKY-SURRENDER OF UNION CITY-ATTACK ON PADUCAH-DASTARDLY CONDUCT OF THE REBELS-ATTACK ON FORT PILLOW-THE MASSACRE THE REBELS ATTACK PLYMOUTH, NORTH CAROLINA-A REBEL IRONCLAD ATTACKS THE MIAMI AND SOUTHFIELD, SINKING THE LATTER-EVACUATION OF PLYMOUTH-POPULAR INDIGNATION. VERYTHING now seemed ready for the great change EVER that took place the next month, when LieutenantGeneral Grant was put at the head of all the armies of the Union. The same order of the 12th of March, that gave him this high position, assigned to Sherman the command of the Department of the Mississippi-composed of the minor Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and Arkansas-in short, the command vacated by Grant. Under him, was a group of lieutenants rarely equaled, never surpassed, in any army-McPherson, Hooker, Thomas, Howard, Hurlbut, Logan and Schofield. It was a grand army, and grandly officered. Grant, in Washington, at once went back to the original military plan of moving two armies simultaneously southone east, and the other west of the Alleghanies. Richmond and Atlanta were the objective points, which, when once reached the former the head, and the latter the heart of the Confederacy-the two mighty armies could steadily 288 SURVEY OF THE FIELD. approach each other, crushing and grinding whatever lay between them. As Grant, from his high position, took a glance at the work before him, what a spectacle met his gaze! Never before had one Commander surveyed such a vast field of operations, and looked over such a mighty array, subject to his single control. From the Potomac to the Rio Grande, for five thousand miles, arose the smoke of camp-fires, and stood embattled hosts awaiting his bidding. To aid him in the gigantic task before him, six hundred vessels of war lined the rivers and darkened the coast for twenty-five hundred miles, while four thousand guns lay ready to send their stern summons into rebel defenses. Soon, the effect of Grant's grand designs began to be felt, though scarcely seen by the public eye. Railways groaned under the weight of soldiers returning to their regiments; the rivers were black with transports bearing ordnance and supplies, and the entire North trembled under the tremendous preparations going forward. It was no single isolated battle that Grant contemplated, but mighty, unceasing blows to be dealt by the colossal force under his command. It was to be a final struggle between the North and South-the last fatal interlocking of the two giants in a death grapple. We needed a practical head like his, over the Navy Department. If the naval power of the South had borne any proportion to its land forces, this want would have been felt in a deplorable manner. But our naval strength was so overwhelmingly preponderant, that great disasters were almost impossible. But the feelings of our naval Commanders may be gathered from Farragut's dispatches from before Mobile, on the outer forts of whose Bay he was fiercely pounding, while Sherman was traversing the State of Mississippi with the hope of lending him a helping hand. In the latter part of January, he had made a bold reconnoissance |