Raab Collection

In February 1862, the little-known Grant moved against Forts Donelson and Henry, the Confederate positions guarding the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. With 17,000 men and a flotilla of gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on February 6 and promptly made his way to Donelson 12 miles away. When the Confederate commander asked for terms of capitulation, Grant replied simply: "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."

On February 16, the fort surrendered with over 14,000 men. The capture of these forts, the first major Union victories in the war, opened up Tennessee to the Federal armies. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant was acclaimed throughout the north; Lincoln promoted him to major general and made him commander of the Army of the Tennessee in the Department of the Mississippi. However, Grant’s very success incurred the jealousy of his superior, Gen. Henry Halleck. Grant's army faced a challenge at the Battle of Shiloh (also called Pittsburg Landing).

Early in the morning of April 6, 1862, the Confederates burst through the unfortified Union lines and threatened to drive Grant's men back into the Tennessee River. Historians differ on whether Grant was at fault in being surprised, but it is clear that Union forces only escaped being routed with the arrival of Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army. The next day, the Union recaptured the initiative and drove the Confederates back in disorder. Yet the battle was essentially a draw, while also being the bloodiest battle yet to occur on the American continent. When the news reached the North, where expectations had been high, a storm of abuse broke out against Grant, who was held responsible. He may well have not deserved the blame, but he admitted reassessing the war after Shiloh.

He wrote, “Up to the battle of Shiloh I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies. Donelson and Henry were such victories...The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, from their mouths to the head of navigation, were secured. But when Confederate armies were collected which not only attempted to hold a line farther south...but assumed the offensive and made such a gallant effort to regain what had been lost, then, indeed, I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.” This charged atmosphere enabled Grant’s foe, Gen. Halleck, to move against him.

On April 11, Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing and took personal command. On the 21st General Pope arrived with an army 30,000 strong, fresh from the capture of Island Number Ten in the Mississippi River. Halleck had now three armies: the Army of the Ohio, Buell commanding; the Army of the Mississippi, Pope commanding; and the Army of the Tennessee, Grant commanding. He determined to reorganize these forces, and to divide them into the right wing, center and left wing. Buell would command the center, Pope the left wing, and in place of Grant, Gen. George H. Thomas, who had been in Buell's army, would be transferred to the Army of the Tennessee and given command of the right wing. Grant was to be named second in command of the whole, a theoretical promotion but in actuality a humiliating demotion.

By April 28 the details of the changes were known to the generals involved, and they were informed that an order would be issued April 30 instituting them. Thus, April 29 would be Grant’s last day in command of the Army of the Tennessee. On the 28th, Halleck ordered Grant, “You will tomorrow morning move forward one division...and support it by the advance of your other divisions. Guards and pickets will be pushed forward...for an advance in full force.”

In response, on April 29, Grant wrote five letters, one to Halleck himself, two to Halleck’s adjutant A.C. Kemper and two to his own division commanders, Gen. Lew Wallace and Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant publishes them in the following order, perhaps because Grant’s letterbook indicated that they were written in that order. The first letter reported to Halleck that he [Grant] had complied by ordering Gen. Wallace to move forward, the second and third initially informed Kemper of the further orders he [Grant] had issued, and then related that three divisions under his command had advanced to the points Halleck had specified in his order of yesterday. The fourth, to Wallace, informed him that “Three divisions of my forces, several of Gen. Buell’s and some of Pope’s have been advanced to near Pea Ridge...The front is to be most guarded against.”

The final letter, giving Hurlbut specific orders to execute, follows; it constitutes, as far as is known to the Grant Papers, the final orders Grant issued in command of the Army of the Tennessee. It is also, perhaps, the last instance of his exercising authority as that army’s commander.

Autograph Letter Signed, one page 4to, Headquarters, Army of the Ten., Pittsburg [Landing], April 29, 1862, to Gen. Hurlbut. “Move your camp forward tomorrow taking ground in rear or to the right of 2nd Division. Take everything including sick if practicable. Such sick however as are not likely to be fit for duty within the next ten days may be left in your present camp, proper medical attendance being left with them. Make immediate arrangements to have and to keep on hand at all times at least two hundred rounds of cartridges [per man] including those with regiments.”

On April 30, Halleck issued Special Orders No. 35 making the changes effective. His Papers indicate that Grant wrote just two letters on the 30th, both to adjutant’s of Halleck, one informing him that the forces he had been ordered to move a few days earlier had been moved, and the other speaking of the need to settle his accounts. Then Grant was a man without a command.

As he stated, “Although next to him [Halleck] in rank, and nominally in command of my old district and army, I was ignored as much as if I had been at the most distant point of territory within my jurisdiction...” Not altogether surprisingly under the circumstances, Hurlbut was unsure whether to execute the orders of a man now displaced. He preferred to resupply before moving forward, and although he would never have dared to question an order given by Grant while Grant was in command, he wrote Halleck’s adjutant on the 30th to ask if he could ignore the order. This was undoubtedly the lowest point in Grant’s professional life during the war. Halleck, an able organizer and administrator but a poor field general with no strategic sense, was to have his brief day in the sun at the expense of the war’s most successful leader.

On April 30 the 100,000 man Union force commenced its advance from Shiloh. It took a month to move 20 miles toward Corinth, where the 70,000 man Confederate army was holed up. This was because, having met some resistance, Halleck ordered it to entrench as it went. As Grant criticized it, “The movement was a siege from the start to the close. The National troops were always behind intrenchments...Even the commanders...were cautioned Ônot to bring on an engagement.’ ÔIt is better to retreat than to fight.’ The enemy were constantly watching our advance, but as they were simply observers there were but few engagements that even threatened to become battles.

All the engagements fought ought to have served to encourage the enemy. Roads were again made in our front, and again corduroyed; a line was intrenched, and the troops were advanced to the new position. Crossroads were constructed to these new positions to enable the troops to concentrate in case of attack...For myself, I was little more than an observer. Orders were sent direct to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from one line of intrenchments to another without notifying me. My position was so embarrassing in fact that I made several applications during the siege to be relieved.”

When Halleck’s army arrived at Corinth late in May, the rebels evacuated the city and their entire force got away to fight another day. Halleck did not follow them and so, by June, the promising campaign ended with inadequate results. The reasons for this failure were not lost on President Lincoln, who much preferred a fighting general like Grant to an incompetent over-cautious general like Halleck. The President felt that he could not just fire Halleck outright, and in any case did not want to lose his administrative skills. He determined on a strategy of his own which paid dividends: on July 11 Halleck was booted upstairs - he was appointed general-in-chief of all the armies. He set out for Washington six days later, leaving his second-in-command, Grant, in command of the armies he had led (to which position Grant was officially promoted on October 25). Once he returned in July, Grant would never again be without command. Soon indeed he would be hero and president. A letter of exceptional importance, perhaps the finest war date letter of Grant’s we have ever carried.