Sold – As the Battle For Petersburg’s Weldon Railroad Ends, Gen. Grant Informs Gen. Benjamin Butler of His Strategy: “It is prudent for us to keep all the force we can South of the Appomattox.”

"So long as we hold the Weldon road it is prudent for us to keep all the force we can South of the Appomattox"

Grant's grand strategy to defeat the Confederacy in 1864 was to place the Army of the Potomac (under the command of Gen. George G. Meade) between the rebel capital of Richmond and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. After terrible battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor resulted in a failure to defeat and outmaneuver the Confederates, Grant had to abandon hopes to take Richmond directly. He next focused on Petersburg, 25 miles due south of Richmond. Confederate supply lines passed through there, where three railroads met (The Norfolk & Petersburg, Petersburg & Weldon and South Side). If Grant could cut these railroads, then Lee would have to abandon Richmond. From June 14-18, the Army of the Potomac crossed the James River to come at Petersburg and its railroads from south of the city. But Lee successfully interposed himself between Petersburg, the rail lines, and the Union forces. After four days of combat with no success, Grant had to give up on taking that city directly either. He began siege operations.

So Lee ended up in Petersburg with the Appomattox River protecting his back, and surrounding the city below the river he built two lines of works that covered the entire area. Grant sent Gen. Benjamin Butler and his Army of the James back north towards Richmond, to launch diversionary attacks there and siphon off some of Lee’s forces to drain him at Petersburg. Meade and the Army of the Potomac built works from the river east of Petersburg down to south of the city, as far as they could go. The Confederates controlled all the ground from Grant’s southern tip west up to the river. Siege conditions prevailed from June 1864 to virtually the war’s end. Grant’s main objective during the ten-month Siege of Petersburg was to extend his lines south and west to cut Lee’s railroad links and encircle him at the same time. Here was Lee’s problem: he was stuck in Petersburg and every Union success forced him to extend his lines. Every time he had to extend, those lines became thinner.

In the summer of 1864, the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad that ran from Petersburg southeast was in Union hands, and Grant's thrust was toward the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad that ran due south. If he could cut the Weldon, only one lifeline in Petersburg would remain open to the Confederates, a rail link that ran west. The battle for Weldon Railroad took place from August 18–21, 1864. Union forces managed to reach the railroad quickly, but holding it was another story. Over the next few days there were attacks and counterattacks. Finally, on the morning of August 21, Confederate assaults  met with disaster, and they fell back to their main line of defense. As the sun set that day, Grant was in full control of the Weldon Railroad’s access to Petersburg, and by the next day his troops had fortified the gap between the railroad and their old lines, making for a permament extension of them. Grant wrote Henry Halleck, "Our position on the Weldon Railroad now seems entirely secure."

Over the next few days, Grant planned how best to follow up the victory, and issuing orders to implement those plans. He wrote Meade “It is my desire to hold the Weldon road, if it can be held, and to thoroughly destroy it as far south as possible. I do not expect to attack the enemy behind his entrenchments." He continued about Butler's Army of the James, "I intend to send all of the 10th Corps that can be spared from Bermuda to take the place of the 18th, and to place the latter back on high ground where it will support our whole line from the Appomattox to the plank road, and will, at the same time, be loose to go wherever it may be needed…”

The 18th Corps of Butler's army had recently been placed under the command of Gen. Edward O.C. Ord, in whom Grant had great trust. He had assigned it the extreme right position of the Union lines in the trenches around Petersburg, at the point the contending armies were nearest each other. The proximity of the enemy's pickets and the incessant firing occasioned large losses, daily, in killed and wounded. Grant now determined to withdraw that corps from the front and use it as a mobile reserve. However, his strategy required him to have the maximum amount of forces readily available, so he would need the 10th Corps to come up.
Having so informed Meade, Grant now issued the orders to Butler himself.

Autograph Letter Signed, Head Quarters, City Point, August 23, 1864, to Butler, disclosing his positioning of troops, and requiring him to send the 10th Corps into the fight and maintain the 18th as a reserve. "You may now send the 10th Corps or as much of it as can be spared from Bermuda Hundred, to relieve as far as possible the 18th Corps.   When the 18th is relieved let them go into Camp on high ground in rear of their present position.  So long as we hold the Weldon road it is prudent for us to keep all the force we can South of the Appomattox."

We obtained this letter from the descendent of a member of General Grant’s staff. It was sent as a telegram, with the officer acting as a courier from Grant himself to the telegraph office. After seeing the telegram sent, he retained the original letter, and it has remained in his family for the ensuing 148 years. Knowledge of its text was known from copies, but the continued existence of the original has been unknown until now. It has never before been offered for sale.