THE ORDER FOR A NEW PROGRAMME OF WAR. 433

IV. Major-General J. B. McPherson is assigned to the command of the Department and Army of the Tennessee.

V. In relieving Major-General Halleck from duty as General-in-Chief, the President desires to express his approbation and thanks for the zealous manner in which the arduous and responsible duties of that position have been performed.

By order of the Secretary of War.

E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.

No military order of this war was more satisfactory than this, appointing Lieutenant-General Grant to the command of the Armies of the United States. Not the least agreeable feature of it was the announcement of headquarters in Washington with General Grant in the field. He was still to lead in person, and the name which was the omen of success to his soldiers was still to be their rallying cry in battle.

28

CHAPTER XXI.

GENERAL GRANT AND THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.-ITS LEADING GENERALS.

A Ball-room on the Battle-field.-General Grant's idea of such Warlike Preparations. A Fancy Officer.-The Pause and Crisis.-The Opening Campaign and its Field. Incidents.-Sketch of Major-General George Gordon Meade.-MajorGeneral Philip Henry Sheridan.

A FEW days before the anniversary of Washington's birthday, near General Warren's head-quarters, an immense ball-room, erected at no small expense, had been thronged with dancers. We shall not soon lose the impression the unfinished building made on our mind, when, a few weeks before, for the first time we saw it. A ballroom on a battle-field! But the ladies from a distance were delighted with the soldierly frolic, and approached General Grant on the subject, expressing the hope that there would be another in the Army of the Potomac.

He coolly listened, and then assured them that, if another were attempted, he should stop it by special order. It was no time or place for music and dancing, excepting the martial airs and firm step of the warriors, many of whom were soon to fall in the strife.

The same day the ball came off, the President had issued an order for preparations in every department of the army for an early advance. For this grand action General Grant was ready. It suited his ideas of carrying on the war. He soon revealed his purpose to move on Richmond. It was not the capital mainly he wanted; but to crush or fatally cripple the well-disciplined, formidable army under the splendid leadership of General Lee, was the serious work he resolved to undertake. Notwithstanding the repeated failures before, the losses and retreats of the noble Army of the Potomac, the victor of the West was willing to try his strength against the accomplished commander of "the flower of Southern chivalry" in the East. But one condi

THE FANCY OFFICER AND GENERAL GRANT.

435 tion was demanded by him, and granted-the entire control of the army for one hundred days. That is, for that period the campaign should be his own; he would assume the high responsibility of its success, with no interference from Washington, however well or wisely intended. This arrangement gave unity of plan and harmony in action. He soon visited the able and gallant General Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, at his head-quarters, and inspired new confidence and hope in officers and troops. Strict discipline was enforced. The speculators and hangers-on in the field began to disappear. Fancy soldiering was made contemptible, as it ought to be. A pleasant story related of General Grant illustrates his course in regard to it.

While he was looking over his new field, near Culpep. per Court-House, his head-quarters, in a drizzling rain, attended only by his orderly, a carriage approached him. It was drawn by a pair of fine horses, and attendants escorted it. When near him, the driver reined up, the door was opened, and out sprang a dashing officer. He inquired if that dripping, unostentatious man was General Grant. The latter replied in the affirmative. The officer added, that he wished to see the General on business.

"Come, walk with me," answered General Grant.

There was no other way to do. Into the mud went the polished boots; and, unprotected from the rain, the gay uniform was worn, till, like a peacock after a tempest has beaten down its plumage and besprinkled it with dirt, the officer stole back to the carriage with soaked, saturated .apparel, and drooping feather. The parting counsel of his commander, to set an example of a more becoming style of living, was thus enforced by a baptism into the new order of things which he was not likely to forget.

The nation, inspirited by the grand successes of the Lieutenant-General, held breath in view of the great and decisive crisis reached. Three years of bloody war, which it was supposed three months would close, had left their mournful record. The strain to supply "the sinews of war" had been increasing every year. Men and money had been given lavishly. Great victories had been won. Still, the army which we first confronted on the "sacred

soil of Virginia," and the capital of the growingly desperate "Confederacy," were apparently stronger than ever. It was no vainglorious nor ordinary act to step forth into such a condition of affairs, the master-spirit of the vast and momentous issue.

But the time of renewed and costly activity had come. God's finger had, it seemed, designated the man for the hour and the work.

We find another good story, which sounds like the General. A visitor to the army called upon him, one morning, and found the General sitting in his tent, smoking and talking to one of his staff officers. The stranger approached the chieftain, and inquired of him as follows:

"General, if you flank Lee, and get between him and Richmond, will you not uncover Washington, and leave it a prey to the enemy?"

General Grant, discharging a cloud of smoke from his mouth, indifferently replied: "Yes, I reckon so."

The stranger, encouraged by a reply, propounded question No. 2: "General, do you not think Lee can detach sufficient force from his army to re-enforce Beauregard and overwhelm Butler?"

"Not a doubt of it," replied the General.

Becoming fortified by his success, the stranger propounded question No. 3, as follows: "General, is there not danger that General Johnston may come up and reenforce Lee, so that the latter will swing round and cut off your communications, and seize your supplies?"

"Very likely," was the cool reply of the General, and he knocked the ashes from the end of his cigar.

The stranger, horrified at the awful fate about to befall General Grant and his army, made his exit, and hastened to Washington to communicate the news.

A Galena neighbor, who visited New York about this time, seemed utterly confounded with the sudden growth of his neighbor the tanner. He couldn't account for it, for he was not a marked man in his home, and nobody supposed him a great man. He seldom talked, asked no advice, gave none to any one, but always did what he agreed to, and at the time.