The Unassuming General from Galena

On March 8, 1864, a middle-aged man accompanied by a child checked into the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. At first glance, he appeared unremarkable—just over five feet tall, slightly hunched, with a weather-beaten face and unkempt brownish beard, his clothes reeking of tobacco smoke. Yet when he signed the register as “U.S. Grant and son, Galena, Illinois,” the clerk nearly gasped in recognition. This was the man whose victories at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga had made his name legendary even in the capital.

The writer Richard Henry Dana later described Grant as “ordinary-looking, short and stooped, appearing worn and tired… with no air of command.” Yet Dana noted something else: the 41-year-old general possessed an unmistakable determination—”a look as if he could not be trifled with.”

That evening, Grant walked two blocks to the White House for a reception hosted by President Abraham Lincoln. Though both men had lived in Illinois before the war, they had never met. Lincoln spotted Grant across the room and strode forward, extending his large hand: “Ah, General Grant!” When the president led him into the East Room, the crowd erupted. Ladies tore their lace dresses in their eagerness to shake hands with the new general-in-chief. The cheering grew so thunderous that the crystal chandeliers trembled. One reporter called it “the only mob I ever saw in the White House.” Someone shouted, “Stand up so we can all see you!” Grant obediently climbed onto a crimson sofa, where he remained for an hour. Another journalist observed: “For the first time, the President was not the central figure. The small, plain man on the sofa was now the idol.”

The Weight of Three Stars

The next afternoon, Grant returned to the White House for a ceremony promoting him to lieutenant general—the highest rank yet bestowed upon an American soldier. Only George Washington and Winfield Scott had previously held the title, and Scott’s had been largely honorary. Though slightly nervous, Grant read his acceptance speech clearly: “I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving on me… and I shall give to them all my sincere efforts to avoid disappointing your expectations.” In his humility, he forgot Lincoln’s suggestion to compliment the Army of the Potomac.

After the ceremony, Grant’s predecessor Henry Halleck congratulated him—ironic, since Halleck had nearly cashiered Grant for alleged drunkenness after the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Recognizing Halleck’s administrative talents, Lincoln reassigned him as chief of staff, where he could translate civilian directives into military orders and vice versa—a crucial role in the rapidly expanding war bureaucracy. This allowed Grant to focus on field command rather than paperwork.

Taking Command of the Army of the Potomac

On March 10, Grant traveled by train to Brandy Station, Virginia, headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. This force, molded by George McClellan and hardened through three years of war, was arguably the best-trained and best-equipped army in the Western Hemisphere. Yet despite its courage—demonstrated in six doomed charges against Confederate stone walls at Fredericksburg—the army suffered from institutional caution, an inability to seize opportunities, and a deep-seated fear of Robert E. Lee.

Grant saw the problem clearly: past Union failures stemmed from uncoordinated armies acting independently, “like balky horses refusing to pull together.” He devised a grand strategy involving five simultaneous offensives across a 1,000-mile front. While William Tecumseh Sherman advanced into Georgia and other forces pressed secondary fronts, Grant would personally oversee the Army of the Potomac’s confrontation with Lee. His orders to General George Meade were simple: “Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.”

The Wilderness: Grant’s First Test

The Overland Campaign began on May 5, 1864, in the tangled thickets known as the Wilderness—the same ground where Lee had humiliated Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville a year earlier. For two days, 120,000 Union and 60,000 Confederate soldiers fought amid burning underbrush that trapped wounded men in infernos. Unlike his predecessors, Grant didn’t retreat after bloody repulses. On May 7, as the shattered Army of the Potomac expected to withdraw north, Grant instead ordered a night march south toward Spotsylvania Court House.

When soldiers realized they were advancing rather than retreating, their spirits soared. A Maine soldier wrote: “We marched not as defeated men but as conquerors.” Grant’s determination marked a psychological turning point—this army would keep fighting until the Confederacy collapsed.

Spotsylvania and the Bloody Angle

At Spotsylvania, Lee’s men constructed elaborate earthworks including a salient called the “Mule Shoe.” On May 12, Grant ordered a massive assault. In pouring rain, Union troops captured nearly an entire Confederate division at the salient’s tip, but Confederate counterattacks reclaimed most of the ground. The ensuing 20-hour struggle at the “Bloody Angle” saw hand-to-hand combat across piled corpses as rifle fire sawed through oak trees two feet thick. Though tactically inconclusive, the battle further depleted Lee’s dwindling manpower.

Cold Harbor: A Costly Mistake

By early June, both armies reached Cold Harbor near Richmond. On June 3, Grant launched a disastrous frontal assault against fortified Confederate lines. In less than an hour, 7,000 Union soldiers fell—many within sight of their starting positions. A Confederate observer described “a slaughter pen… men were swept down like chaff before the wind.” Grant later admitted: “I regret this assault more than any one I ever ordered.”

The Siege of Petersburg

After Cold Harbor, Grant executed a brilliant maneuver, secretly crossing the James River to threaten Petersburg—Richmond’s supply hub. Though initial attacks failed to take the city by storm, by mid-June Union forces began siege operations that would last nine months. Lee’s army was now trapped in a death grip; the Confederacy’s fate was sealed.

Legacy: The General Who Would Not Retreat

Grant’s 1864 campaign cost over 50,000 Union casualties—more than all previous Union commanders combined. But unlike his predecessors, Grant understood this gruesome arithmetic: the North could replace losses; the South could not. His relentless pressure prevented Lee from reinforcing other fronts, enabling Sherman’s capture of Atlanta and Lincoln’s reelection.

Historian Bruce Catton summarized Grant’s achievement: “He could not drive Lee away from Richmond, but he could make it impossible for Lee to do anything else.” By pinning down the Confederacy’s best general, Grant ensured the Union’s ultimate victory. His arrival in Washington marked the beginning of the end for the Southern rebellion—proof that an unassuming man from Galena possessed the determination to preserve the United States.

The Westerner had come East, and nothing would be the same again.