Sold – Signed “Report of Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, of the Armies of the United States, 1864-5”, Including Correspondence With Lee Related to the Surrender

On July 22, 1865, less than two months after the surrender of the last Confederate army in the field, General Ulysses S. Grant issued a report on the operations of the Armies of the United States, which were all under his command. He discussed his strategy and thinking; here is a sample quotation: “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.” Then he laid out the situation as he found it as the winter of 1864 turned to spring, and related the instructions he then gave his generals. Another example: “Gen. Sherman was instructed to move against Johnstons army, to break it up, and to go into the interior of the enemies country as far as he could, inflicting all the damage he could upon their war resources.” What follows is a step by step description of the conduct of the war and Grant’s ongoing assessments from April 2, 1864 when the war’s final campaign commenced until Lee’s surrender at Appomatox on April 9, 1865. It also includes important correspondence between Grant and Generals Butler, Sherman, etc. He describes broaching the surrender to General Robert E. Lee thusly: “Feeling now that Gen. Lee’s chance of escape was utterly hopeless, I addressed him the following communication from Farmville: ‘April 7, 1865. General: the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in the struggle. I feel that it is so, and regarded as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further infusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate states army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.’” Grant was an engaging writer, and the report is a very interesting read.

The report was published as a book, 44 pages, by the Government Printing Office in Washington in late 1865, under the title “Report of Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, of the Armies of the United States, 1864-’65.” It contains what must have been the first printing in book form of this material, and particularly of his correspondence with Lee relating to the surrender.

Col. Absalom Markland became a personal friend of Grant’s when they were in their early teens. While Grant began a career in the U.S. military, Markland studied law and became a government official in the Office of Indian Affairs. During the presidential campaign of 1860 he supported Abraham Lincoln who, after his election, appointed Markland a special agent in the Post Office Department. When the war broke out, Markland was assigned to assist Grant, who used him not merely to manage and improve mail delivery to his armies, but more importantly as a trusted courier carrying letters and messages between Grant, headquarters, President Lincoln, and other generals.

A copy of the “Report of Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, of the Armies of the United States, 1864-5,”  inscribed and signed on the blue paper cover, “To Col. A.H. Markland, P.O. Dept., From U.S. Grant, Lt. Gen. U.S.A.”