Sold – Gen. Ulysses S. Grant Briefs Gen. George G. Meade on His Strategy For the Next Steps in Encircling Petersburg

"It is my desire to hold the Weldon road, if it can be held, and to thoroughly destroy it as far south as possible."

Newly appointed by President Lincoln to lead all the Union armies, Grant developed a strategy to defeat the Confederacy by placing 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. On 4 May, Grant’s forces crossed the Rapidan River and started the campaign. Lee attacked while Grant’s men were still in a tangled forest area called the Wilderness, and the battle there was a major one. At its end, Grant did not retreat back to his camp to recover, but instead moved southeast towards Spotsylvania Court House, in an attempt to get past Lee’s right wing. Lee moved in time to prevent Grant from seizing the road junction at Spotsylvania. Fighting continued around Spotsylvania from May 8-21 and was inconclusive. From there, Grant continued his movement to the southeast, around Lee’s right. On June 3, his disasterous attack on Lee’s dug-in army ended Grant’s hopes to take Richmond directly.

Next Grant focused on Petersburg, 25 miles due south. 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. On June 14 the Army of the Potomac crossed the James River northeast of Petersburg on a pontoon bridge over 2,000 feet long, and moved towards that city. Lee was fooled by this move and did not move south until June 18, by which time Grant’s entire army had been moved south of the James. After four days of combat with no success Grant began siege operations.

So Lee ended up in Petersburg with the Appomattox River (a tribuary of the James) 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 northeast 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 of Weldon Railroad (also called Globe Tavern) took place from August 18–21, 1864. Union General Gouverneur K. Warren led his Fifth Corps west from the Union lines located south of Petersburg on August 18. His lead division reached the railroad around Globe Tavern about 9:00 in the morning and began to destroy the tracks, opposed only by a small body of cavalry. The Confederates sent three infantry brigades early in the afternoon to dislodge Warren, and they managed to halt Warren's advance up the railroad; however, they could not drive him away. Warren deployed his entire corps to cover the railroad, leaving a gap between his right flank and the established Union lines to the east. Into that gap on August 19 plunged three Confederate brigades, while more Confederates pressed Warren's front. The Confederates made progress, but Union reinforcements came up and halted it, so although Lee had won a victory of sorts, he fell short of recovering the critical railroad. On the 20th Confederate generals P.G.T. Beauregard and A. P. Hill prepared for a major attack to accomplish that goal, providing Warren the opportunity to adopt a stronger defensive posture. The Confederate assaults on the morning of August 21 met with disaster. By noon the Confederates were repulsed everywhere and fell back to their main line of defense. As the sun set that day, Warren 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. Meanwhile, on the 22nd Grant was planning how best to follow up the victory and anticipate Lee’s next move.

Autograph Letter Signed, City Point, Va., August 22, 1864, to Meade, positioning his troops, stating his purpose to tear up the Weldon Railroad, coordinating Meade’s and Butler’s armies, and most importantly revealing his strategy for the upcoming month. “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 intrenchments, unless he sends off a large part of his force. There is no necessity, therefore, for Warren moving from where he is unless he gains a better position by doing so. I intend to send all of the Tenth Corps that can be spared from Bermuda to take the place of the Eighteenth, 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. Thinking it possible, however, that the enemy might, during to-day or to-morrow, concentrate all his forces to drive Warren away, I have directed General Butler to hold the Tenth Corps where it is, to make the attack contemplated for this morning should the enemy do so.”

Maj. George K. Leet was on Grant’s staff throughout the Civil War. The above letter was sent as a telegram, with Leet as a courier from Grant himself to the telegraph office. After seeing the telegram sent to Meade, Leet retained the original letter, and it has remained in his family for the ensuing 147 years. Knowledge of its text was known from copies, and the continued existence of the original has been unknown until now. We obtained it recently directly from Leet’s descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale.

As things now stood, Lee now had no choice but to offload his supplies from the crucial supply centers in North Carolina at the Weldon’s Stony Creek rail station, 18 miles south of Petersburg, then transfer them by wagon to Dinwiddie Court House and then up the Boydton Plank Road into Petersburg. This new, less-efficient supply line became the target of Grant's next offensive at Petersburg, as he sought to block off the Boydton Plank Road.