Part Part VOLUME XXXVI-IN THREE PARTS. CHAPTER XLVIII. Operations in Southeastern Virginia and North Carolina, May 1-June 12, 1864. CHAPTER L. THE ATLANTA (GEORGIA) CAMPAIGN. May 1-September 8, 1864. PART I.* GENERAL REPORT. Report of Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, U. S. Army, commanding Armies of the United States, of operations March, 1864-May, 1865. HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Washington, D. C., July 22, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the armies of the United States from the date of my ppointment to command the same : From an early period in the rebellion I had been impressed with he idea that active and continuous operations of all the troops that ould be brought into the field, regardless of season and weather, vere necessary to a speedy termination of the war. The resources f the enemy and his numerical strength were far inferior to ours, ut as an offset to this we had a vast territory, with a population ostile to the Government, to garrison, and long lines of river and ailroad communications to protect, to enable us to supply the opering armies. The armies in the East and West acted independently and without oncert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together, enabling e enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of communition for transporting troops from east to west, re-enforcing the my most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, durseasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do e work of producing for the support of their armies. It was a estion whether our numerical strength and resources were not ore than balanced by these disadvantages and the enemy's superior sition. Embraces reports of the lieutenant-general commanding the armies of the ited States, the general and general staff of the Military Division of the Missisi, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Fourth and Fourteenth Army Corps; Twentieth Corps and cavalry (Army of the Cumberland) and Twenty-third ps and cavalry (Army of the Ohio) will appear in Part II; the Army of the nessee (consisting of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Corps), and the federate Army, are embraced in Part III. 1 R R-VOL XXXVIII, PT I (1) 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. At the date when this report begins the situation of the contending forces was about as follows: The Mississippi River was strongly garrisoned by Federal troops from Saint Louis, Mo., to its mouth. The line of the Arkansas was also held, thus giving us armed possession of all west of the Mississippi north of that stream. A few points in Southern Louisiana, not remote from the river, were held by us, together with a small garrison at and near the mouth of the Rio Grande. All the balance of the vast territory of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas was in the almost undisputed possession of the enemy, with an army of probably not less than 80,000 effective men that could have been brought into the field had there been sufficient opposition to have brought them out. The let-alone policy had demoralized this force, so that probably but little more than one-half of it was ever present in garrison at any one time. But the one-half, or 40,000 men, with the bands of guerrillas scattered through Missouri, Arkansas, and along the Mississippi River, and the disloyal character of much of the population, compelled the use of a large number of troops to keep navigation open on the river and to protect the loyal people to the west of it. To the east of the Mississippi we held substantially with the line of the Tennessee and Holston Rivers, running eastward to include nearly all of the State of Tennessee. South of Chattanooga a small foothold had been obtained in Georgia, sufficient to protect East Tennessee from incursions from the enemy's force at Dalton, Ga. West Virginia was substantially within our lines. Virginia, with the exception of the northern border, the Potomac River, a small area about the mouth of James River covered by the troops at Norfolk and Fort Monroe, and the territory covered by the Army of the Potomac lying along the Rapidan, was in the possession of the enemy. Along the seacoast footholds had been obtained at Plymouth, Washington, and New Berne, in North Carolina; Beaufort, Folly, and Morris Islands, Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, and Port Royal, in South Carolina; Fernandina and Saint Augustine, in Florida. Key West and Pensacola were also in our possession, while all the important ports were blockaded by the Navy. The accompanying map, a copy of which was sent to General Sherman and other commanders in March, * *See explanatory foot-note, Vol, XXXII, Part III, p. 261. |