and fire and smoke and blood of battle; cheer it now, that it has left you and taken its place in history. Look upon it, ye men and women of Worcester; behold it riddled with ball and bullet in seven memorable conflicts, beginning with Roanoke and ending with Antietam; then, look again, and behold the ghastly rents made by the shell at Fredericksburg, and see the stripes of red and white merged in crimson by the blood of the fallen brave! Look upon it ye who gave it, and strew the paths of these brave boys with the beauty and fragrance of flowers! Look upon it, ye men of Worcester, who have done but little and could have done more, and ye who have done much and could do no more; look upon it, according to your conscience, with satisfaction, or with repentance, and resolve that henceforth the life of the republic shall engross our hearts, our fortunes, and, if need be, our blood and our lives. Look upon it, Colonel Pickett and men of the Twenty-fifth [Colonel Pickett and many of the Twenty-fifth were present], and behold what reward awaits you when the residue of your great reënlistment shall come home and be received in this heart of Massachusetts. Look upon it, ye men of the Fifty-seventh [the Fifty-seventh, then enlisting under Colonel Bartlett, were also present], and behold what exalted honor is in store for those who go forth for Union and Liberty and Humanity. And now, Mr. Mayor, Men of the Twenty-first, and Fellow-citizens, let us not forget our destiny and our dependence. For the approaching end, and for the result, already apparent, which shall thrill the heart of humanity to the end of time, not unto ourselves, but unto Thee, God of our fathers, shall be all the praise, forever and for evermore ! The public welcome was now over, and the members of the regiment hastened to their widely scattered homes, to enjoy their thirty days' reënlistment furlough. CHAPTER XVI. MARCH 18- MAY 19, 1864. GENERAL GRANT: The Nation's appreciation of what you have done, and its reliance upon you for what there remains to do in the existing great struggle, are now presented with this commission, constituting you Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States. With this high honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I need scarcely to add that, with what I have spoken for the Nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence. PRESIDENT LINCOLN, on presenting General Grant's Commission, March 9, 1864. BATTLES OF GENERAL GRANT APPOINTED TO THE COMMAND OF THE ARMIES OF ALTHOUGH the reënlistment furlough was for only thirty days from February 1, 1864, the regiment was not ordered away from Massachusetts until March 18th, on which date they left Worcester for Annapolis. Arriving in Philadelphia on the evening of the 19th, they again, as two and a half years before, found an excellent supper and a kind welcome at the Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon, where, from the beginning to the end of the war, the soldiers passing through Philadelphia never failed to find love and good cheer. The unselfish devotion of the ladies and gentlemen who sustained it is one of the imperishable memories of the war in the hearts of the soldiers of the Union. Reaching Baltimore at eight o'clock A. M. of the 20th, the regiment received an excellent breakfast at the rooms of the Union Relief Association; and continuing on, arrived amongst the familiar scenes of Annapolis, at four o'clock P. M. They were at first quartered in barracks at the parole camp, but on the 22d of the month went into tents. The old regiments of the corps which had been left in East Tennessee were sent east, and joined the troops at Annapolis early in April. During the preceding winter and early spring of 1864, a determined effort was made to increase the different armies of the Union to overwhelming strength, for the great final campaigns against the rebel armies of the east and west which still held the field, as defiant and nearly as strong as ever, but with no resources now behind them from which to restore the neverceasing, pitiless losses and waste of war. The 9th Corps was reorganized at Annapolis into an army of twenty-five thousand men, only about a third of whom were included in the veteran organizations of the corps, the increase from seven or eight thousand to twenty-five thousand men having been substantially accomplished by the favorite northern method of adding new regiments and batteries. Some five or six thousand of the raw troops added to the corps were negroes, organized into a division by themselves (the 4th), under command of General Ferrero, and were the first colored troops who served in the Army of the Potomac. General Grant had received the commission of lieutenantgeneral on the 9th of March, and on the 12th was assigned to the command of the armies of the United States. The nation had at last a leader of its armies whose drafts for the last man and horse that he thought necessary to pit against the rebel forces were always duly honored. Leaving the armies of the west in charge of General Sherman, General Grant, making his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, with grim and never-failing determination, set at the bloody work of destroying or crippling the Army of Northern Virginia, under General R. E. Lee, the grand army of the rebellion. There was to be little of the romance or strategy of war in the horribly bloody work of that summer's campaign in Virginia; Lee's army (whatever advantage of position it might hold) was to be constantly attacked, in the hope of crippling if not destroying it. I shall attempt little or no criticism upon the conduct of the campaign. War is a brutal business at the best, and it is enough now that our great leader was successful in the end. General Grant explained his views and disarmed criticism in the following sentences in his official report at the close of the war, which I give here by way of preface and explanation : From an early period in the rebellion I had been impressed with the idea that active and continuous operations of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regardless of season and weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of the war. The resources of the enemy and his numerical strength were far inferior to ours; but as an offset to this, we had a vast territory, with a population hostile to the government, to garrison, and long lines of river and railroad communications to protect, to enable us to supply the operating armies. The armies in the east and west acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together, enabling the enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from east to west, reinforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing, for the support of their armies. It was a question whether our numerical strength and resources were not more than balanced by these disadvantages and the enemy's superior position. From the first, I was firm in the conviction that no peace could be had that would be stable and conducive to the happiness of the people, both north and south, until the military power of the rebellion was entirely broken. I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy, preventing him. from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the Constitution and laws of the land. These views have been kept constantly in mind, and orders given and campaigns made to carry them out. Whether they might have. been better in conception and execution is for the people, who mourn the loss of friends fallen, and who have to pay the pecuniary cost, to say. All I can say is, that what I have done has been done conscientiously, to the best of my ability, and in what I conceived to be for the best interests of the whole country. . . . The 9th Corps, under General Burnside, was destined to take part in the summer campaign of 1864, in immediate connection and coöperation with the Army of the Potomac, but constituted a distinct army until the 24th of May, when it was incorporated with the Army of the Potomac. In the reorganization of the 9th Corps, the 21st was assigned to the 2d brigade of the 1st Division. The brigade was commanded by Colonel Daniel Leasure, of the 100th Pennsylvania regiment; the division by the chivalrous General Thomas G. Stevenson, formerly colonel of the 24th Massachusetts regiment. The 2d Division was commanded by General Robert B. Potter (formerly colonel of the 51st New York regiment), one of the most gallant fighting men in the whole army; and the 3d Division by General O. B. Willcox. On the 23d of April the 21st left Annapolis with the corps, and taking up the line of march for Washington, on the 25th of April marched through the city, passing in review before their loved and honored commander, General Burnside, and President Lincoln. Passing over Long Bridge, the corps went into camp near Alexandria. On the 27th of April they marched to Fairfax Court House, — a day's march of sixteen miles. Taking the road at eight o'clock A. M. of April 28th, the regiment marched to Bristoe Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, a day's march of twenty miles. the 29th, marching on about twelve miles, they went into bivouac three miles south of Warrenton Junction, and on the 30th moved on a couple of miles to the vicinity of Bealton Station, where they remained until Wednesday, May 4th. On May 4th. Starting at seven o'clock A. M., the regiment made a march of some seventeen miles to the vicinity of Brandy Station. Lee's army of seventy thousand fire-tempered veterans were lying in a strong position behind the |