General Grant (April 9, 1864), in a confidential communication to General Meade,( 1) outlined his plan for the early movements of all the principal Union armies. Texas was to be abandoned, save on the Rio Grande, and General Banks, then on Red River, was to concentrate a force, not less than 25,000 strong, at New Orleans to move on Mobile. Sherman was to leave Chattanooga at the same time Meade moved, "Joe Johnston's army being his objective point and the heart of Georgia his ultimate aim"; if successful, Sherman was to "secure the line from Chattanooga to Mobile, with the aid of Banks." General Franz Sigel (then in command of the Department of West Virginia ( 2)), was to start two columns, one from Beverly under General Ord, to endeavor to reach the Tennessee and Virginia Railroad west of Lynchburg, and the other from Charleston, West Virginia, under General George Crook, to strike at Saltville and go thence eastward to join Ord. General Quincy A. Gilmore was to be transferred, with 10,000 men, from South Carolina to General B. F. Butler at Fortress Monroe, and the latter General was to organize a force of about 23,000 men, under the immediate command of General W. F. Smith, with which, and Gilmore's command, he should "seize City Point and operate against Richmond from the south side of the river," moving simultaneously with Meade's army. To Meade he said: "Lee's army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes there you will go also." General Burnside, then at Annapolis organizing the Ninth Army Corps, was to reinforce Meade with probably 25,000 men. There was to be naval co-operation on the James. Grant had not then determined on which flank to attack Lee, or whether he would cross the Rapidan above or below the Confederate Army.
All baggage was reduced to the lowest standard possible. "Two wagons to a regiment of 500 men . . . for all baggage, exclusive of subsistence stores and ordnance stores. One wagon to a brigade and one to a division headquarters, . . . and about two to corps headquarters."
Meade subsequently made a further reduction, and allowed only one wagon to a regiment.
When it was finally determined to move by Lee's right flank, Meade was ordered to have supplies forwarded to White House, on the Pamunkey.( 3)
Sigel was directed to advance a column in co-operation from
Martinsburg up the Shenandoah Valley.
Grant, in a confidential dispatch,( 4) April 29th, to Halleck, fixed May 4th as the date for putting the Army of the Potomac in motion, saying:
"My own notions about our line of march are entirely made up, but as circumstances beyond my control may change them, I will only state that my effort will be to bring Butler's and Meade's forces together."
The next day, on the authority of a rebel officer arrested in Baltimore, who left Lee's army on April 17th, Halleck wired Grant that Lee was about to move Longstreet by the mountain road westward over the Blue Ridge with 20,000 men; that Hill, 50,000 strong, was to force Grant's right at Culpeper, and with three divisions form a junction at Warrenton with Ewell; that all Confederate troops from East Tennessee were to strengthen Lee; that Breckinridge, with 25,000 men in West Virginia, accompanied by Morgan's cavalry, was to force his way down the Kanawha into Ohio, near Gallipolis; that if Lee reached Pennsylvania, Breckinridge was to join him, Morgan's cavalry destroying all railroads to east and west; that Lee's general direction was to be towards Wheeling and Pittsburg; that Richmond's defence was to be left to Beauregard, with Pickett's division of 15,000 men, the Maryland Line, details from hospitals, conscripts, militia of Governor Smith's call (fifty to fifty-five years of age), and a foreign legion of forced aliens.( 5)
This plan, if ever formed, comprehensive as it may have been in conception, was never to be even partially put in execution. It probably originated in the fertile imagination of the rebel officer from whom Halleck obtained it.
In March, 1864, an equally comprehensive plan was conceived by Longstreet, then at Greenville, Tennessee, by which Beauregard was to lead an advance column from the borders of North Carolina through the mountain passes, Longstreet to follow through East Tennessee, uniting with Beauregard in Kentucky, and, together, move against the line of railway from Louisville, and thus force Sherman to retire from Johnston's front, allowing him to advance northward, avoiding general battle until all the Confederate columns could form a grand junction on or near the Ohio River. This plan was approved by Lee, and by both Lee and Longstreet laid before President Davis and the War Department at Richmond. Davis disapproved it.