Sherman, also, had been “cutting a wide swath” in the enemy’s country. A campaign of remarkable energy and hard fighting had given him the possession of Atlanta, Georgia, on the 2d of September; then leaving General Thomas to watch and manage the rebel Hood in Alabama, he had cut loose from his base at Atlanta and marched through the heart of rebeldom, 300 miles, to Savannah, which surrendered to him on the 22d of December. Hood, meanwhile, led on by Thomas’ maneuvers of retreat, and by his own rashness, fell into the trap prepared for him and which “sprung” upon him at Franklin, on the 30th of November, in a battle which cost him the loss of eighteen generals and nearly 7,000 troops. Still persisting in an attempt to invest Nashville, he was attacked by General Thomas, on the 15th of December, routed and driven in confusion to the Tennessee River and out of the State. During the same month, an expedition planned by General Grant, consisting of two divisions under General Butler, and a naval force under Rear Admiral Porter, set sail (December 15) against Fort Fisher, N. C. This was unsuccessful, and was speedily followed by a second expedition, in which the command of the land forces was given to General Terry. This proved a grand success, capturing Fort Fisher, (January 15,) and effectually closing Wilmington harbor, which had long been one of the chief channels of foreign supplies to the Confederacy.
On the 6th of February, a movement upon Hatcher’s Run, ordered by General Grant for the purpose of gaining position nearer to the Weldon Railroad, resulted in a desperate struggle, in which (on the second day) the Union lines were broken, but the next day the lost ground was regained and held, and finally the lines were permanently advanced four miles in advance of the original position. On the 25th of March, 1865, the rebels suddenly massed a heavy force upon Fort Steadman, near Petersburg, which they captured, but were almost immediately repulsed, and a portion of their own lines held by the 6th and 2d Corps. Four days later (29th) General Grant ordered an advance in order to occupy the Southside Railroad, which was now Lee’s only line of supplies. Sending Sheridan, who with his cavalry had just cut the rebel lines of communication north of Richmond, to threaten the railroad near Burkesville Junction, in order to attract Lee’s attention in that direction, he moved the 2d and 5th Corps across Hatcher’s Run (by the Vaughan and Halifax roads) to endeavor to seize the Boydton plank-road. On the first day, all went well; the cavalry reached Dinwiddie; the 5th Corps had a sharp but successful fight for the possession of the Quaker road, and the 2d Corps encountered but little opposition. By the 30th of March, the 5th and 2d Corps held the White Oak road and the Boydton plank-road; but the next day, the 5th, in attempting to reach Five Forks, on the White Oak road, found the enemy strongly intrenched, and was driven back upon the 2d Corps. Rallying, and with the help of a division of the 2d Corps, they regained their previous position by nightfall, though only by very hard fighting. Meanwhile Sheridan’s cavalry had been fiercely attacked by another rebel division, but the gallant general dismounted his men, placed them behind temporary breastworks, and repulsed the enemy until nightfall—both sides resting on their arms during the night, within a short distance of each other. Sheridan expected the reinforcement of Warren’s 5th Corps, which Grant had notified him would report to him that night, and he dispatched a note to Warren at 3 A. M., urging his speedy approach, on the enemy’s rear, while he would attack them in front. Warren, however, did not reply till morning, and did not succeed in reaching Dinwiddie; and Sheridan, promptly at the time appointed, attacked the foe with his own troops, driving them west of Chamberlain’s Creek. Meeting Warren, about seven or eight o’clock, four or five miles north of Dinwiddie, he directed him to press on the enemy when he should receive orders, and himself invested Five Forks, on two sides, with his cavalry. A little after noon he ordered Warren to attack on the east side, but Warren’s movements seemed to him so reluctant and indifferent that, although the attack proved a perfect success, Sheridan relieved the general from his command, which was given to General Griffin. On the following day the enemy were pushed still farther to the river road on the banks of the Appomattox.
A fierce bombardment continued along the Union lines surrounding Petersburg, and on the 2d of April, the 6th, 9th, and the Provisional Corps, after a short but terrible struggle, seized and tore up the long coveted Southside Railroad, capturing many prisoners and guns. Richmond and Petersburg, being thus rendered untenable, were evacuated during the same night, and occupied by Union troops on the morning of April 3, 1865. Pausing not for a moment, however, General Grant pressed on in the hopes of capturing the defeated rebel general and his army. At Deep Creek, Paine’s Cross-roads, Deatonsville, Farmville, High Bridge over the Appomattox, and Appomattox Station, actions of greater or less severity were fought with the rebel army, which now, thoroughly demoralized, was strewing the road with deserted artillery, wagons, and supplies, which were passed unnoticed and untouched by the Union troops in the heat of their unremitting and exultant pursuit. At length, on the 7th, General Grant at Farmville, sent a note to Lee, requesting the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Pressing on, still in relentless pursuit, he was met at Appomattox Station, on the morning of the 9th, by a note from General Lee asking for an interview with a view to the surrender of his command. The same afternoon, at Appomattox Court-house, he received the surrender of the rebel chieftain, on terms which were liberal in the extreme. The war was now virtually ended, and Grant, passing through Richmond, went to Washington, and on the 14th took the cars for a visit to his family, then in New Jersey, but was overtaken en route by the terrible news of the assassination of President Lincoln, and the tragic events caused by a plot, of which it seems that he had been one of the marked victims.
Meanwhile, Sherman sweeping through the Carolinas, had flanked and captured Charleston, S. C., as well as Columbia, Cheraw, Fayetteville, and with the aid of Generals Terry and Schofield, had taken Goldsboro’, Smithfield, and Raleigh, and held Johnston’s rebel army “pinned to the wall.”
Stoneman’s cavalry from Thomas’ army, had also thoroughly broken the Virginia and East Tennessee Railroad and the North Carolina road above Salisbury, had released the Union prisoners confined there, captured a large amount of stores, and effectually cut off Johnston’s retreat. From south, west, and southwest came cheering news of victories won, all tending to the completion of the great plan by which the power of treason was to be destroyed.
At this juncture, the Cabinet at Washington received from General Sherman a memorandum of a treaty between himself and General Johnston, for the surrender of all the rebel armies in the field and the complete cessation of hostilities. In the then excited state of public feeling, the terms accorded by General Sherman to the rebel leaders, were deemed too liberal; and at the request of the Government, General Grant proceeded incognito to Raleigh, conferred with Sherman, and ordered the immediate resumption of hostilities. This brought Johnston to terms, and, by General Grant’s orders, General Sherman received his surrender, on the 26th of April, on the same terms as those accorded to General Lee. The surrender of Dick Taylor to General Canby on the 4th of May, 1865, and shortly after, of Kirby Smith’s army west of the Mississippi, completed the record of the War of the Rebellion.
General Grant returned to Washington, where on the 28th, he issued an order reducing the expenses of the Military Department, and attended the grand review of his victorious legions at Washington, preparatory to their disbanding and return to their homes. Visiting his family at Burlington, N. J., on the 2d of May, he was, on the 3d, welcomed by the citizens of Philadelphia, who presented him with a costly and elegantly furnished house in that city. A portion of the summer of 1865 was spent by him in flying trips to the East and West and Canadas; and his passage through the country was a series of brilliant receptions, orations, and public and private demonstrations of respect, which proved the people not unmindful of the distinguished services he had rendered to the Republic. At Galena, the place of his residence when he entered the service, the citizens met him with festive demonstrations of affection and respect, and presented him with an elegant and well-furnished house (costing $16,000), on a most beautiful elevation near the city, which he and his family entered amidst the cheers of the excited crowd, and the ringing of all the church-bells in the place. On the 10th of November, he was complimented by the City of New York, with a magnificent banquet and reception at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, rarely equalled even in that demonstrative metropolis, and presented by the merchants and capitalists of the city with one hundred thousand dollars, as a token of their gratitude for his patriotic and successful labors in restoring union and peace to the country.
The Thirty-Ninth Congress at its first session, resolved to create the rank of General of the army, which had hitherto been considered the special perquisite and prerogative of the President, and Lieutenant General Grant was promoted to this honor, which it was resolved by Congress, when again vacant, should not be filled. His commission as General bears date July 25, 1866, and on the same day, Major-General Sherman was promoted to the vacant Lieutenant Generalship.
General Grant, by special order of President Johnson, accompanied him in his tour in the summer of 1866, to Chicago and St. Louis; but during the whole journey he neither by word or look manifested, as he doubtless did not feel, any sympathy with Mr. Johnson’s “policy” of reconstruction. In the correspondence relative to the New Orleans massacre, he manifested his abhorrence of the act, though he knew that it had received the quasi-sanction of the President. With his habitual reticence, he refrained from any interference with, or expression of opinion upon, political questions; and though urged as a candidate for the Presidency at first by conservative Republicans and some Democrats, he manifested no interest in the movement, and the most skillful pumping failed to elicit from him any expression of opinion which the politicians could make available. His duties as General of the army were performed quietly, promptly, and satisfactorily, and the hospitalities of his house in Washington were freely tendered to men of all parties and of none.
The time came, however, when this reticence could no longer be maintained. The President, who had long been cherishing hostility toward the Secretary of War, Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, early in August, 1867, requested him to resign; Mr. Stanton refused to do so, on the plea that he was compelled to retain office from his view of what were the exigencies of the public service, and President Johnson immediately suspended him from office, and appointed General Grant Secretary, ad interim, on the 12th of August, 1867.