Do you know what it means to clothe and feed such an army with the bare necessities, to say nothing of what the horses require to live upon or of the shiploads of ammunition that was used in the nine months’ operations?
All had to be transported there by water, so you can imagine what a vast number of transports filled the river.
Admiral Porter’s fleet of monitors, gunboats and other warlike craft were anchored off Bermuda Hundred in sight of Grant’s headquarters, which was a modest log house on the bank of the Appomattox.
Gen. Grant was the least pretentious general officer in the army and used to walk and ride around with only one orderly with him, and seldom wore any insignia of his rank.
About a mile from his headquarters, towards the front, were the great field hospitals of the army. Large wall tents were used and they covered a vast acreage of ground.
It is not likely that so many sick and wounded were ever gathered together in this country before, and it is to be hoped that there may never be a repetition of it.
Transports left daily loaded with sick and wounded, for as soon as a patient could stand the trip he was sent north to make room for the daily arrivals from the front.
President Lincoln and many other distinguished men were Gen. Grant’s guests at different times, and Mrs. Grant spent most of the fall and winter with her husband.
The cannonading along Butler’s lines as well as at Petersburg could be plainly heard at City Point.