Strategy and tactics were splendid qualities in Mexico, where the officers of the two armies had been graduated from different military institutions. There strategy overcame all odds, confounding the Mexicans with its brilliant results. On the battle-fields of Virginia, West Point fought on both sides, and the difference in weight and mobility of brain gained victories.
Grant had solved this problem of strategy out of his own and the experience of the unfortunate generals of the army of the Potomac. He believed in strategy as fully and firmly as any general; but the sad spectacle of the splendid army whose movements he was to direct in the closing campaign, marching back, beaten, but undismayed, from Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Chickahominy, assured him that strategy alone could not cut the gordian knot of rebel power.
After the fierce battles of Chattanooga, where skill and science had done their perfect work, Grant was smoking his cigar at his headquarters in Nashville, in company with Quartermaster General Meigs and General W.F. Smith, who had greatly distinguished himself in the engineering operations of the campaign just closed. Smith was pacing the room, absorbed in his own thoughts, and lost to everything around him.
"What are you thinking about, Baldy?" asked Meigs, breaking the silence which had continued for some time.
General Smith was so intensely engaged in his meditations, that he did not notice the question, and made no reply.
"Baldy is studying strategy," added Meigs, turning to Grant with a laugh.
"I don't believe in strategy in the popular understanding of the term," said Grant, very seriously, as he removed the cigar from his lips. "I use it to get as close as possible to the enemy with little loss."
"And what then?" asked Meigs.
"Then? 'Up, guards, and at them!'" answered Grant, with more fire than usual.
His practice was an exemplification of his rule; but he believed that, after strategy had done its utmost, there was, in this war of the Rebellion, a deal of terrible fighting to be done. With this view Grant placed himself where he could direct the movements of the army of the Potomac. Long before he assumed his present office, he had studied the problem, and he was now prepared to act vigorously and in earnest. He purged the army of incompetent men, sternly banished all fancy work from its lines, and gathered himself up for the mighty struggle.