Grant, Ulysses S., as Union General

Autograph letter signed ("U. S. Grant"), 3 pages (9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.; 250 x 199 mm) on a bifolium of blue-ruled paper (watermarked platner & smith | lee mass with a war eagle on shield), Chattanoga, Tennesee, 18 November 1863, to Colonel John Riggin, Jr., acompanied by the original autograph envelope, which has been redirected in another hand from St. Louis to "Care of Major Genl. McPherson, Vicksburg Miss."

Mrs. Gertrude Beekman (Anderson, 11 December 1914, lot 116)

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, ed. Simon, 9:413 (printing an incomplete text, with errors, taken from Doris H. Hamilton, "Letters of U. S. Grant," in Hobbies: The Magazine for Collectors (April, 1957)

An important, previously unlocated letter from Grant to a member of his staff, predicting Union success in the Tennessee Valley: "There will be a big fight here, or a general skeedadle of the enemy before you receive this. I am tired of the proximity of the enemy and do not intend to stand it if it can be helped."

Grant begins by thanking Riggin for his offer "to fill such commissions as I may have to send to St. Louis," but he turns quickly to a substantive military discussion: When I arrived here everything was in a desperate situation. The Army was being supplied with wagons over a desperately bad mountain road seventy miles in length. Teams could not get through with more than six hundred pounds each and but very few mules even lived to make the second trip. Artillery horses were entirely gone or so reduced that all left could not more than move one piece to each battery. The enemy staring us in the face, with their pickets and ours not one hundred yards apart, have been able to send Longstreet off, before my eyes, and I have not been able to move a foot to stop his advance up the Tennessee Valley against Burnside."

But subsequently, Grant explains, the situation has changed: railroads and steamboats are now carrying the Union supplies, and General Burnside, with whom Grant has been out of communication because of cut telegraph wires, seems to be faring better. Grant predicts that "There will be a big fight here, or a general skeedadle of the enemy before you receive this. I am tired of the proximity of the enemy and do not intend to stand it if it can be helped."

Moreover, Grant reports that the rebels "are deserting in great numbers" due to "a feeling of despair permeating the Southern Army and, I believe, the whole people." Still, despite the improved Union situation, Grant regrets that he cannot bring the war to conclusion just yet: "I believe the news of the rapid filling up of our Armies, and one more good whipping, will virtually end the war. Unfortunately I am not in a condition to give them that. I could not follow the enemy with a large force for want of supplies and for want of animals."

The General concludes his letter by chiding his sons for their sporadic correspondence. "I was very glad to hear from my children. I have ordered Fred & Buck to write to me often, but they don't do it. If you see them again tell them they must write to me every week."