“Form ranks!”
“By fours, march!” and we were en route to the Rapidan. It was the last taste of home-made grub that we enjoyed till the campaign was over. We secured the makings of a square meal now and then while raiding around Richmond, but the territory had been foraged so often that it was considered mighty poor picking the last two years of the war.
As we rode forward, we found that everybody was on the march or getting ready to leave. Lines of tents were disappearing on all sides as the long roll sounded through the camps. Supply trains were moving out, and everything was headed about due south. As we rode by the bivouacs of the infantry, the foot soldiers, imitating the Johnnies, would sing out:
“Hay, there! where be you all goin'?”
“Bound for Richmond.”
“But we all are not ready to move out yet.”
“Then we'll drive you out.”
“You all can't whip we all. Bob Lee will drive you all back as he has done before.”
Then there would be a general laugh all along the line at the expression in this semi-serious way of an idea that had gained a strong lodgment in the minds of many “peace patriots” at the North. The soldiers at the front who were doing their best to crush out rebellion did not share in the feeling that the Jeff Davis government would carry the day. The veterans of Gettysburg and of Antietam knew that the Union army was in no respect inferior to the chivalry of the South—man to man. All the Army of the Potomac needed to enable it to fight Lee's army to the finish, and win, was a commander that knew what fighting to a finish meant. Would the new commander fill the bill?
President Lincoln, in presenting Grant's commission as lieutenant-general at the White House, March 9, 1864, assured the modest hero from the West that “as the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you.” A few days after the lieutenant-general remarked: “The Army of the Potomac is a very fine one, and has shown the highest courage. Still, I think it has never fought its battles through.” The Army of the Potomac was waiting for a general who would give it an opportunity to “fight its battles through.” All eyes were fixed on the lieutenant-general. The result is recorded in history.