of the army, and the resources of the country been considered by the
administration sufficient to meet all the requirements of the civil and
military situation.

At a still later period after General Grant had come to the head of
military affairs, had decided to take personal charge of operations in
Virginia, and was seriously considering the appointment of General
Smith to the immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, it became
known to me, through a letter from the latter, that he strongly favored
a "powerful movement from the lower James River, or even from the
sounds of North Carolina" against the interior of the Confederacy. I
was at that time serving in Washington, as the Chief of the Cavalry
Bureau, and upon receipt of the letter laid it before General Rawlins,
Grant's able Chief of Staff, but without giving it my concurrence or
approval, for such consideration as he might think best to give it. It
was received at a juncture when the selection of a proper plan of
operations was conceded to be a matter of the gravest importance. It is
an interesting fact that the plan in question did not receive the
support of Rawlins, although both he and Grant, fresh from the victory
of Chattanooga, were warm friends and admirers of General Smith as a
strategist. Rawlins, with unerring instinct, took strong grounds
against it, for the reason, as he vigorously expressed it, that he
could not see the sense of going so far, and taking so much time to
find Lee with a divided army, when he could be reached within a half
day's march directly to the front, with the entire army united and
reinforced by all the men the government had at its disposal. Knowing
that this was Grant's argument as well, I have always supposed that his
final decision to advance directly from Culpepper Court House against
Lee's army, and to retain Meade in immediate command of the Army of the
Potomac, while the entire available force of Butler's Department should