It's March 18 64. Billy promoted Lieutenant General, Lucy's s Grant, decided to place his command in the field with the largest arm of the union war machine, the army of the Potomac. Still encamped outside Culpepper, Virginia, the 120,000 man force has been scaring across the rapidan river and the confederate adversaries to the south all winter. Within the next 8 weeks, Grant will launch his army south and begin the bloodiest military campaign of the civil war. Welcome to WarIeng.
Greetings. I am Kyle in Bondo, and this is Vooray Yankee Overland, my American Civil War History podcast that follows General Ulysses S Grant in the army of the Potomac. On its 47 day, 113 Mile Military Campaign South from Culpepper, Virginia to Petersburg, Virginia.
In this episode, I began focusing on Ulysses S Grant's choice to move his command into the field, and join the army to protonic and make preparations to enter the wilderness and engage General Robert E Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In just 8 short weeks, an army that he, as only known once, since the Battle Chattanooga, Tennessee, way back in October, November of 1863,
will become his new home for the remainder of the civil war. And up to this point in the war, Grant is yet to put his plan into motion If you think about the timing this hall took, in early of March of 18 64, he's been newly appointed to lieutenant general. He's met the president for the first time. He is now the general in chief of the United States army, a combined force, no longer is it independent armies.
The nation's army. So he's in charge of an entire military organization that now has to transform from its old way of allowing each Union army to be independent from each other into a combined single national army that consists of a single commanding general over all 550,000 US soldiers nationwide. This is a big move for not only the United States, but a big move for Grant, who's gone from being simply the general in charge of the army of Tennessee, now being the general in chief.
The book now stops with him at all points. And on top of all that, Lincoln has heralded him as the answer to Lee that Grant will be the 1 who will finally check Leigh in the Army of Northern Virginia. And this is an interesting point in history because Grant is feeling this pressure.
And at some point, he says in response to Lincoln's admiration for his background and for what he expects Grant to do into the future, Grant says, quote, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight and responsibilities devolving on me and know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies. And above all to the favor of that providence which leads both nations and men. Grant is understanding that he is really in a place of history.
Remember, 18 64, this is the year it has to happen. All things come to a head in this year. This is the election of Abraham Lincoln or not. This is the end of the war or not. This is the dissolution of the republic. Or not. There's a lot of big moves happening in this moment, and Grant is well aware of this. He calls it he even states it states it in that quote where he says, Providence, which leads both nations and men.
Because Grant is really a student of God happens when you're making other plans. And so the transformation from winning general to save other public would not come without its challenges, and Grant's aware of this. And 1 of those challenges is connected to
the existing military. Because the ranking officers with the union army are notoriously resistant to change, especially the eastern officers who have who've been around Washington and understand the northern elitism that it happens within the military establishment, something that Grant would have to deal with during the entire Overland campaign of 1864 and even into 18 65 and to the end of the war, is this elitist military attitude versus
the the soldiers general, the in the field general, this back and forth between the desk jockeys and the commanders in the field. And even those desk jagies are that become commanders in the field. He's a deal of all of this. It's a problem he never really gets passed until the end of the war. Additionally, unlike other commanding generals who stayed where they are accustomed to remain in Washington, Grant realizes that he can't fight this war from a desk.
So he's determined to put his command into the field. And he's had enough of the show business of Washington. He didn't even like it when he arrived. He's only been there a week, and now the show business the glitz, the glam, the dinners, the accolades, the reporting, all of that is something that he just does not want to be around anymore. He's looking forward to leaving.
But 1 thing he has to do before he can really leave. And in leaving, he's needs to go from the Westman Theatre to prepare them. For some of the thinking of his grand strategies that he may have to do, and even conceiving of his grand strategy. He has to go and tell General George Mead, the current commander of the army of the Potomac, that he does plan to join him in the field.
So this is something that was really considered his first real command challenge. Because by informing Mead that he'd be joining him in the field, This means me would not be leading, technically, the army of the Potomac. He would have this enigma around him, the controlling general of all the armies, and most likely controlling me at the same time. So there's this this interesting dichotomy that happens between these 2 men.
And general meat is not if historically, I could make a joke about this to say, you know, meat took it so well. You know, he's such a very column and collected man. Not true. They call him the old snapping turtle. The man was notorious for this quick temper. It's explosive anger. And he didn't know what he was gonna get. He didn't know which version of me he would get. And it's not really known what Grant was really kind of feeling about the upcoming encounter. With me.
But what I do know is that on March 10th, 18 64, Grant arrives at Brandy Station Train Depot in near Culpepper, Virginia. And this is where he's riding basically taking the train from Washington out the Culpepper. And if you drove in a car, it's
90 minutes. Not that far away by a car. So you think about train. Probably didn't take him too long to get there. I think the train goes out to Manassas and then heads south down the the orange and Alexandria train line is how he would have arrived there to Culpepper. So maybe the 2 hour train ride, let's just say, and major general George Mead is there, meeting for the first time. Then you think about Grant. Grant's what? 58, kind of a £130, soaking wet. He's not a very big man.
He's got his beard still from the western theater. That may or may not have been cut down to size at this point. And you have Mead, who's a much taller gentleman, It's got bug eyes. They call him a snapping turtle for a reason because he kinda looks like a turtle. If you think about the cartoon turtles, Mead fits that description very well. And they meet each other for their very first time. And during this encounter, both of them ride out to Mead's camp.
Now, Culpepper is a small little town, and by this time in the war, it's been hammered and destroyed as burned buildings. It's it's not exactly the greatest place to live because it's a military encampment, and it's along the front lines. So the trees are all cut down, and there's 4 occasions all over the place, and there's military all over the place, tents and everything.
And so there is cold pepper itself, the town. There is the Brandy Station, which is the train depot, and then there is the camp. And 1 of the big camps is called the Fleetwood Hill camp. Just a few miles away where about a 100,000 soldiers are winturing, just north of the Rapadhan River. So imagine what it must look like. And if you go there, these fields are are rather large. They look like farm fields now, but just imagine, you know, lines of numerous tints.
Set up. With a 100,000 soldiers, the footprint is vast to think about this. And just a few miles of the south is Lee's army of Northern Virginia. And there's 65,000 confederate soldiers arrayed around mine run. And along the southern Bank of Rapadhan River, So there is 65,000 of confederates to the south. There's a 100,000 Union soldiers to the north. All this tiny
thin ribbon of river between them. The rapidan river is not in an impressive river. It's not very big. I think if you If you think about it is is think about it as like a like a an 8 lane highway.
It's probably at its widest point. It's not that wide. As far as rivers go, It's not very big. It's not very deep either. It's deceptively deep because it's muddy, and it's got steep banks. So there's like very interesting places you can cross. All these forwards that dot along this river, and most of them are manned or are guarded at some point. Within 5 or 6 miles of each side of cold pepper. So this is what they do. As they ride out and go see the Fleetwood Hill camp,
They inspect the troops if you would. And this is where Grant's gotta tell Mead what his plans are. And up to this point, Mead is really having kind of a lackluster career. Yes. He took command of the union army just before Gettysburg. And so he gets the credit for Gettysburg. Even though you could down there's a historian's debate what impact Mead really had on the battle.
Well, that's an argument for another time. Well, let's just say this way, is Mead is still dealing with his post Gettysburg delay. Because although he's considered the hero of Gettysburg, what happens next is not very good. He chases Lee down towards cold pepper, through cold pepper into a place called mines run, and there they fight the battle of Payton's form. And this is where Mead really gets handed a you call let's call it a stalemate, but it's more or less a defeat.
Lee counters his attack. Meade has a very descriptive way in which he plans on circulating Lee's flank. Nothing works, nothing goes correctly. In fact, 1 of his subordinate governor Warren suspects a trap. And refuses to attack, which of course infuriates me, but later realizes that it was a trap. So the whole plan falls apart And because of that, they have to retreat back to Culpepper to rethink their strategy, and this is where the lions have been for 5 months.
So you're looking at 5 months of people just sitting and staring at each other. And sometime in the early springtime, They even tried to assault the main defenses the confederates had on the other side trying to catch them napping, and that was repelled. Think this was an attack that said 1 of his other court commanders, a gentleman named John Sedgwick, initiated,
or they tried to rush across the rapidan river and attack their Fort vacations on the other side. It was foolish because it was muddy and cold and, of course, the you know, thinking about water in February, Virginia, It's, like, running through running through ice is really what it is. It's not quite frozen yet, but it feels like it. And that was repulsed.
So they've had no success for 5 months ever since Gettysburg has not been a good winter. And this is the this is the environment in which Mead is in right now when Grant arrives. And so, when this is all kind of in play, Grant shows up and informs Mead that he's going to bring his new command to the field. And, of course, Mead is
I'm sure, Mead, think about this, is you've been given charge of this army. It's you've been working your whole career, your page treat you're involved in the war effort. You've been doing everything you can to be successful and beat this other guy. And then you're told, yeah, someone else is gonna be your boss. You kinda being passed over for promotion in that sense. It's difficult to hear, I imagine.
And so me does something that Grant didn't expect him to do. He offered his resignation. He thought by by reputation
that Sherman was was Grant 2nd in command, Sherman was Grant's boy that sure enough he would want Sherman to be the commander of the army of the Potomac and relocate me to a leader or a lower corps commander position or maybe some other make a good desk job in Washington. Who knows? But Grant is kind of taken back that Mead says, you know what? I get it. You're probably gonna want Sean Sherman to be in my place. Here's a resignation. I won't I won't fight you. I understand how this works. This is not my first rodeo.
Well, because Grant this is unexpected to Grant. He he refuses it. It impresses him. He didn't really understand the caliber of what Mead was until he know me him and looks him in the eye and has this conversation and sees what he's actually built. Mead's been preparing this whole time, the spring for a spring offensive. So through the winter of the spring, they've been resupplying and building up their defenses and making strategies and recognizing different areas of the of the frontline.
So Grant's impressed. And he goes, no. I need someone in charge of the army with Potomac. Why I run the operations of the US army? I'm gonna be running the whole thing. Not just you, but I'm gonna be dealing with Franz Siegel and Ben Butler and Sherman, and we're gonna be coordinating the big theater, I guess, beyond theater, the national campaign to destroy the confederacy. So I need someone to run the army of the of the Potomac, a smaller version tactically
that I don't have to deal with the minutiae and the day to day operations. I'm gonna give you orders, you're gonna as the army commander, go and do those orders. And Mead accepts, now even though he'll probably end up being more like an executive officer in that sense and just get the things that didn't grant once done and maintain that tactical command while grant stays strategic, it really allows
grant to do 2 things. 1 is there's this rivalry issue Western Commanders coming east. Not the first time didn't work out. The Eastern West Theater, armies, They have this weird relationship. They really like each other. They have attitudes as well. I think the western boys are are frontiersmen and reckless where the eastern people are more strategic and and refined.
So already, or having some, like, just strange cultural changes in the army. And Grant understands this. So it's east versus west military attitudes. Is something that he has to he has to worry about. So he has to also understand that the army may not like him. So as long as there's a familiar face, there, which is me, someone they understand and who they respect, he can help weeds for some of these problems.
The other thing it does is it gets rid of grant having to do the day to day operations of the army. Mead can take care of those things. And it allows grant a little bit of flexibility to rethink or or reconsider the big picture and to get the reports in intelligence and the battle reports and military losses and victories and be able to put that all into his brain computer and see the bigger picture. That's what this will allow him to do. So it's a it's a fruitful meeting.
And Grant on the next day returns to Washington on March 11th having really not thought it would go that well. Turns out it went pretty well. So now Grant in Washington is appearing a little more calm. Because he thinks he has the army of the Potomac figured out at least on the surface that Mead will help him continue up duration there, and it won't be a problem for him. And he's become more business like than ever. He comes back to Washington. He meets privately the president.
And it's interesting because it said that President Lincoln didn't want to know Grant's final plans. Then even though he met with with Lincoln, in the war department, and even his new chief of staff, Major General Alec, who was no fan of grants, still they they had a working relationship. Lincoln observed that every other military man he'd ever previously put in charge wanted the president's approval of his plans before that this general would take responsibility for the outcome of those plans.
Only Grant wouldn't do that. When the president said I don't really wanna know those plans, Grant was like, okay, sir. I will go and I will effectively do the work that needs to get done. And Lincoln even says Grant is the 1st general I've ever had. He is a general. He's understands. Lincoln says here are the strategic requirements for what we need accomplished. And Grant said, yes, sir. I will do that.
And Lincoln's like, well, you don't need me to approve your plans. I go, it's like, no. I don't need you to approve my plans. And this is the thing that I think made Lincoln trust him. Because with Grant, Lincoln declared he hasn't told me what his plans are. I don't know, and I don't want to know. I'm glad to find a man who can go ahead without me. That really says that the president has ultimate trust in grants decisions.
Plus, Lincoln didn't want to know Grant's operation because he was afraid it would leak. Because not just telling Lincoln the plan, but, of course, the war department and everyone else the plan, you get enough people involved into making the sauce or making the sausage eventually, especially Washington DC. Washington DC even today is notoriously leaky. Lincoln didn't wanna know. He didn't wanna know the specifics.
He had a pretty good idea of what the overall plan was. Everything else The operational security was left to grant and grant a loan. So now with Mead Delwith and Lincoln Delwith,
the last person Grant had to deal with was the first lady. I know you're thinking, what is the first lady you have to do with the Overland campaign? Well, She was insistent that they hold a banquet in his honor, back the next day on 12th, and that he would he would have to go to all these different dinners and be invited to all these these congressional these congressional meetings. And so congressmen and the senators can meet him and all the White House cabinets and
the entire administration and dignitaries and rich people and the whole 9 yards could come and see the new grant. Because this is something that kinda happened with McCullen. When McCullen came to Washington, that's what they did. They the pomp and circumstance was it was vast. Grant, once, none of this.
In fact, The 1 thing he's done more than any other general is he's told Missus Lincoln, no. Which is really kind of a big deal to tell the first lady no because then no 1 really tells the first lady no. Grant does. He even says, Time is very important now. And really, Mister Lincoln, I have had enough of this show business. And in his way of telling the president, that I understand your wife wants to do these things, I'm going to go fight a war. I'll see you later. And with that, in fact,
on March 12th, so remember, on the 10th season Brandy Station in Culpepper talking to Mead, And then on 11th, he's back in Washington to talk to Lincoln about his his finalizations of certain plans. On 12th, he's back on a train. And this time he's going to Tennessee.
And he goes there from 12 to 23rd, he travels in Nashville to meet with Sherman and the other principal western generals to discuss the upcoming military campaign because he needs all their strategic input, especially his best friend, William to come from Sherman. So Grant goes west for a week. And does some of this planning and and setting up of what the western theater will look like and giving Sherman an idea of what his new kind of strategy is. Now politics
interferes, like it always does. In Grant, understanding the politics and war are very, very closely related. Gets it that certain things can happen. He wants a a union force to attack Mobile, Alabama. That doesn't happen. Instead, they launch I think it's banks Nathaniel Banks then goes up the Red River through Louisiana.
Looking for cotton and trying to to plant the flag in Texas, and that doesn't go well. But he realizes that this has to be some of the things that have to happen. Isn't get the chance to control some of these things. Politics are ultimately going to impact some of his decisions. But he can motivate Sherman to understand what he's doing now. We're no longer fighting for cities. We're now fighting armies. We're gonna destroy the Confederate's ability
to wage war. And that does not only mean killing soldiers. That means destroying their supply lines, destroying their rail lines, destroying their crops, destroying their means of production,
This is a very big change in war. In a sense you could think of it as scorched earth, or some of this starts to become very common, and Sherman will go on to become notorious for it. But it's in its infancy now of what the big strategic change is So after spending a week out in Tennessee with friendly faces, he returns to Washington on March 23rd.
And then after tying up some loose ends with his chain of command with Halek and the chief of staff of what supplies and where the supply chains will be, and where he's strategically thinking of where those new supply points will be along the Atlantic Coast, up through the Chesapeake, along the James River. He's worked out some in secret ways of understanding how Alec will start supplying him with certain things, with beans, bullets, and band aids.
And where he'll tell Hallick, this is the next center of all supplies will be because he's gonna move them. The army's gonna be on the move. This is he already knows this ahead of time. After doing that, spent 3 more days in Washington. He's finally ready. He returns to the army of the Potomac on March 26 1964. And when he arrives at Brandy Station, he doesn't go to Fleawood Hill. He doesn't stay at Brandy Station.
He decides to move his headquarters to Culpepper, Virginia, which is still a mile or 2 away. And he establishes it there near the army of Potomac, but not in the army of Potomac because he wants to It wants to really communicate that this is Mead's show and that he is there in addition to Mead. Not as a replacement for me. So he decides that he set up his headquarters inside the city limits of Culpepper, if you could call it a city at this time.
And this is very subtle in doing this. He's giving me his space because Brandy Station is logistically, and for all intents of purposes, meads headquarters.
So by going to Culpepper and being a little more removed from everything, he takes up lodging in a place called John Barber's home. Which sits off West Davis Street next to the county courthouse. It's not there anymore. It's been bulldozed, and there's something else there. You know? Time goes on. But He sets it up right next to the county courthouse. And here is where he'll fine tune the strategy for coordinating the sustained attacks and compare forces.
And allow me to coordination between the 2 headquarters to come up with a tactical attack of Lee's forces to the south within the next few weeks. And at this point, grant and need start having communications back and forth. And in some of those communications, some of those understandings of what tactically they're going to need to do, and some of the logistics
His member Grant is a logistics guy. He's a quartermaster during the during the Mexican American war, so he understands the need for supplies and how supplies work. He goes back and forth to Washington 4 more times, and kinda gives the administration the bare bones outline of his forthcoming military operations. And 1 of those elements within that operation of his supplies was a union officer named lieutenant colonel Theodore Lineman.
And he wrote to his wife Elizabeth, this very interesting quote, he says, here is Grant with his utterly immovable face. Going about from cold pepper to Washington and back and sending no end of Cypher messages, all big with strategy. And even they are starting to realize that Grant's the big guy. He's controlling everything, and Mead is running the army. An element within Grant's picker picture.
So in this time frame of Grant returning to the army of Potomac in Culpepper on March 26th, and moving back and forth. Grant is thinking. 1 of the the historical accounts is that Grant brought his bae horse Cincinnati.
And this big brown horse that that he rides upon, and somebody even referred to him as when they see him, it looks like a sack of potatoes riding it. But he gets on this horse and he rides through the camps. He almost like he's inspecting truce, but he's just wandering the countryside on his horse. So he in Cincinnati are going up to meets headquarters and out to Fleetwood Hill and down through where the defenses are and back. And the whole time, he's thinking.
He's riding through. He's looking at troops. He's thinking about tactics. And then he'll show up the Mead's headquarters, and they'll discuss tactics. And then he'll move back to his his headquarters and talk with his aides about tactics and then send some encrypted messages off and then leave for Washington and then come back from Washington and then describe some other tactics and some different the strategic options, and then repeat the whole process over again.
He's even talking to other commanding officers in each regiment. He's getting to know this army is getting seen. He's out and about. And he's looking at me its position between the Rapadhan River and where the Rapahenic River cuts in. The Rapadhan is kind of weird because it cuts across east to west, and then it jukes and junks and moves up and down. It kinda snakes through the Virginia countryside. And the and it empties into the volcanic far to the east of their position.
And so the rapidan river has several miles of land between the Union and the Confederate armies. And it's really a natural boundary. A river is a giant pain to cross when you don't have, you know, advanced and, you know, bridging the chains and and etcetera. You have to build bridges or find the shallow ground. And that's just to get foot troops across that dimension horses and cannons and supply wagons and etcetera. It also doesn't mention rain and the the changes of the size of the rivers
a flash flooding, mud, and all the other things that come with a challenge across a river. So the rapid end river is a perfect boundary. Plus on the other side of that are these massive defensive works. Created by the Confederate Army.
So there's only a few points to cross, and they're only every few miles. And usually, they're they're really well watched. And cold pepper is like a great location to prevent leaf from attacking the North again. Because it's the kind of the place where the Rabaudan is kind of the shallowest. If you go far to the west, you start to get into more mountainous terrain, start to head towards the Shenandoah. If you go far to the east, Now you have Fredericksburg, which now the union controls.
It's this weird place right here where this is the conduit that allowed Lee to get to Gettysburg the year before. And it was the place where he repelled Hooker the year before also at Chance River. So this has become the place. This is barely a town place. I think a lot of some of the union troops even called it a nasty hole of surrounded by ruined and burned out houses.
And really, it's the military town. I mean, there are the puzzle population that's left over. There are envelopes and women and children and old men in which they would call them seshoes. The slang for secessionists. They call them all these sessions still hanging around spying on us. And the whole time, There's these 2 mountains that sit kind of across from each other, 1 to the south, 1 to the north, and one's called Mount Pony. And it looks across right onto the confederate defenses.
And behind the confederate defenses is another mountain called Clarks Mountain in which the confederates we're doing the exact same thing back. And so this low, warm torn landscape is not even recognizable with landmarks. In fact, the signal tower people, the people watching both of these forces, really were the only ones who understood where things were. New arrivals this area would easily a loss to the way it just looked like the surface of the moon, all the way down to the river.
And meanwhile, this whole time, the Orange Alexander railroad has been running endless trains of supplies to the union forces, And now there's this warehouse in Alexandria is being emptied into cold pepper, which is more or less a whistle stop now has become
Mead's nerve center. In fact, he has strong telegraph lines all the way out to all the different army commands and all the different tits. It's a cold pepper and everywhere. And there's planks laying everywhere, like little tiny thoroughfares because of all the mud. Because during the entire month of April, it just rains. There's mud everywhere.
And because of these supplies coming from Alexandria on a constant basis, these supplies are stacked 3 stories high around Brandy Station. And do include all that. It's not just military soldiers everywhere. You have Quartermasters
and medics and pioneers that people are fixing the roads and and subtlers who are trying to sell their wares even though they chase them off later. And there's ordinance and hospitals clothing departments and tents for new boots and new rifles and places to get your haircut.
So circling outside from Brady Station are all these camps. And mule drawn wagons are jammed on the roads because every time a train comes in, they're dispensing these goods into wagons, and then these wagons are going out to the union camps and delivering food and supplies out to these union troops
waiting orders. They've got nothing to do. They're sitting around. And really, on the union side, I'll talk about the competitor side in a later episode. But in the union side, it's kind of snug living. If you think about it, you're not getting shot at. You've got tents. They might be cold. There's a lot of firewood. It's coming and new gears coming in. You're drilling every day, so you're getting really good at at getting in your lines and target shooting.
You're learning your rifle very, very well, getting very comfortable with your rifle. There's good food coming. There's excellent rashes. There's soft bread. Think about you you take for granted some of these things of soft bread, but soft bread coming. Beans, beef, pork, dried apples, coffee, sugar, tea, soap, vinegar, molasses, even potatoes are all coming from the northern
trains and wagons are coming into the cold pepper. It's become this great place to be. Because you're not being forced to go across the line and shoot somebody. You're not being shot at. You get to sit in your tent. Get to drill every day. Get to eat 33 meals a day. You got a new gear. It's not a bad life. And even for the officers, even better because their wives came out in northern places, the ladies of Culpepper. And they're living around the camp. So now there's even pretty ladies everywhere,
and they smell good. So you have the the day to day living with a, you know, bunch of men shoved into a tent, which I'm sure probably smells grand. But then here comes a lady down the street with, you know, smells like flour. So you have these tangible elements of normal life. Occurring around the Culpepper area. In fact, the quartermaster general, Brigadier general, Rufus Ingalls, even sad about this place. Probably no army on earth ever before was in better condition in every respect.
They had everything they needed. They were the biggest army in the world. They were the most well supplied army in the world. They were the best fed army in the world. That is needed a mission. They needed a purpose. And this is where Grant's arrival in Culpepper starts the buzz. Grant's here is from the west. What do we think about him? I don't know.
He starts to really generate buzz around the camps. And you can't imagine this this much movement going on a camp, the confederates not seeing this. So they know because the security across the river is getting tighter, something's about to happen. So there's this foreboding that Something is about to take place.
So Grant has his rival has stirred up these emotions on both sides. That they know that and and, of course, it's spring, and spring is when the civil war kicks off. The the spring offensive is kind of the hallmark of this war now. But we have these key elements within camp that Grant has to to contend with is how is he gonna work because he's in the field now with some of these officers.
But before we get into kind of an understanding of the chain of command and the personalities involved in the army of Potomac, I wanna talk to you about the American Battlefield Trust. If you love Civil War history, then I wanna take a brief moment to remind you of profound statement from Abraham Lincoln. He said, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget. What they did here.
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That's why I want you to consider supporting the American Battlefield Trust. The American Battlefield Trust is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to preserving the sacred places that are etched into our national memory. They have already saved over 50,000 acres of land, but there are still millions of unprotected sites that are being paved over, built on, and erased from history every day. This is why the American Battle of Trust needs your help to preserve these sites for current and future Americans to study and enjoy.
They see each battlefield as outdoor classrooms and living memorials to America's 1st citizen soldiers who fought and died. On these now quiet in Hollywood fields. Join me in the fight to save our nation's historic battlefields by visiting the American Battlefield trust website at battlefields.org.
Because the American Battlefield Trust knows, there is no substitute for experiencing history in the places where it actually took place. Join the only national organization working to save America's historic battlefields today and discover how you can help preserve America's history forever. That's battlefield, battlefield with an s.org. So I already talked about George Mead, the old snapping turtle. George is a man from Pennsylvania with that nasty temper
and the explosive fits of anger. But it seemed interesting that he would have these supposed to fit, say, anger. And he'd walk it off, and then he'd come back with a cooler head. It almost like he needed to explode in order to realize he was an emotional thinker before he could get the logic back into his head. And he had to contend with 3 infantry corps and the cavalry corps. This is about a 100,000 soldiers camped in and around the Culpepper area. That's a lot of responsibility.
And they've been there effectively since the end of Gettysburg, so you've had these guys sitting around nothing to do. You can imagine the amount of trouble these guys get in, constantly having to wade through the day to day diminish strivia of soldiers who've got who are bored.
That's not an easy thing to do. Plus he's also to maintain this this small military city as he's preparing for the the spring offensive. So he has this this this you know, uninvolable task of having to not only prepare an army, a military army for combat, but also maintain the army into the point where they don't, like, kill each other or dissemble into chaos.
So good order and discipline of the day has to be done. And he can do this through 3 core commanders. This is really what Mead gets control of at the beginning of the Overland campaign. And the first individual is
major general governor Kay Warren, and he is the commander of the 5th corps. And he's new. He's a newly appointed guy. He's from New York, and his headquarters is above and below cold pepper. Basically, the 5th core is encamped around the city of Culpepper. Think almost like a ring in its sense. And war is an officer that historians It's he's he's complex.
He's a talented yet tragic figure. Some historians think that he is the worst things since sliced bread. Others say, misunderstood and he was railroaded, he has a very complex relationship with history. Warren Mead have a really good relationship and going all the way back to the battle of Chanserville. And really Warren is Mead's boy. Mead is a mentoring Warren. May have this relationship now where he is responsible for rising warrants through the ranks.
This isn't a West Point graduate who is an engineer, which means if you're an engineer, I mean, pretty smart tie in your class. He's young. He's handsome. He's ambitious. He's considered scholarly. You know, he's like that big thinker. But he's also blunt. And nitpicky. And someone even called him obnoxious. They I guess he's the 8th typical engineer.
I like to think about this. In terms of of like modern day thinking is to me, Warren reminds me of the Union version of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory TV show. Super smart, super wicked smart, but he just doesn't have any of the social graces that allow him to temper that. He's got no filter. In that way. But he's also got this other weird thing because he micromanages everything. He's accused of not having the ability to delegate
There's some stories where he jumps into the trenches and helps them pick and shovel some of the defenses to show them how it works. There's others re pushing a cannon to help it get to the top of some of the defenses during Gettysburg at the little round time. There is him riding with his troops into battle. But there's also a lot of the stories that talk about how although he's wicked smart, he's egotistical.
He's gets his glory hound. Puts himself and harms away so he can carry the day. You know? But for glory and all and other kind of thing. But what he is, for certain, is 1 of the heroes of Gaithersburg. Because he recognizes that little round top is a is a strategic importance of that battle. Turns out it is. Because he holds a little round top on July 2nd, the second day of the battle, It ultimately leads to the victory at Gettysburg.
But he's had some problems. Warren's Corps was ordered to attack Lee's army at Mayan's run at the Battle of Haines Farm, in November of 18 63. And he realizing as a trap refuses the order. And remember Mead exploded. But later he realized that, oh, I guess I guess he was right. So Mead and and Warren have this interesting relationship. And that Mead makes him the 5th corps commander. And just before Grand arrives in March of 18 64, this is the person in charge of the 5th corps.
Which is a significant number of soldiers. So, unfortunately, Warren would go on to have this almost the serious conflicts with both Grant and, in particular, another general, who Grant brings over from the west, a guy named Philip Sheridan, and even go on to upset need more and more and more. So there's I guess you could say is you don't wanna burn all your bridges. Warren seems to me to be a guy who, like, who kind of says what he's thinking.
Doesn't care what the consequences are, which rubs some people the wrong way. So even though he'll go on to be a core commander for the next 2 years and have many successes, this these particular character flaws give him this reputation. And on top of that, he's given this other reputation being overly cautious as engineers
thinker. So he needs to think about the problem if we can solve it. But in military terms, this makes him unreliable because he's too cautious. He won't act when he should be acting. And Grant would go on the later right that considered warned to be both an intelligent cable officer, just like everyone else thought he was. But he would suffer since something Grant would find unforgivable.
And this was he would hesitate in the presence of the enemy. And Grant being the strike now, strike first, strike every time, kind of thinker, Warren is
possibly not that kind of thinker. He's gotta think about it first. Is this the right course of action? Am I doing the best thing for my men? He is the soldiers general, but this gets him in a lot of hot water with a lot of people who don't really favor him in historical context. But at the beginning of the event of the order line campaign, Warren is still an untested commander. So at this point, Grant doesn't have anything to consider good or bad about him. Yeah. They just met. So they're kind of going along those kind of terms in the relationship.
Next, we have Major General Winfield Hancock. Now Hancock is the excellent name. This is a gentleman from New York. He's commanding the 2nd corps, and his headquarters are in Stephensburg, which is If you think about Stephensburg as being the the front line, the Rapadhan River area, this is where the second core is sitting. Is right there below everything.
You keep the the confederates from coming across the river right at them. This is where the second quarter is all gonna spread out at between there and Brandy Station is all over the 2nd quarters at. This is another hero of Gettysburg and really considered Mead's best general. And someone even say he's he's Mead's favorite yet. You think about all he's done for Warren. So does I guess Mead has all his generals or his favorite? Kind of hard to say. But what Hancock is is flamboyant.
I mean, with a name like Hancock, of course, he's flamboyant. Right? He's like, you think peacock. Well, the Hancock lives up to that perfectly. They call him Hancock the superb. Now, he's got a rough little history. He's wounded in the abdomen at Mary Heights when he when the Battle of Fredericksburg in 18 62. He was laid up for a while. So you think about he's been hit once, and then he's wounded again in the battle, Transferville.
So this is he's been wounded twice. He organized the defenses of cemetery Hill at Gettysburg. So he's responsible for the Gettysburg battle for taking place in Gettysburg. And he refused to retreat.
And because of that, that's where the battle was fought. During that, he's wounded for a third time in the right thigh. But he won't leave the battle until it's been decided. So he's been wounded 3 times. And 1 military historian wrote no other union general has Gettysburg dominated men by sheer force of their presence more completely than Hancock. This is a guy who's right in there with the men.
And he's going to lead them. He's got his charisma for days. But these injuries, because he's right to the front line, he's risking himself to be shot alongside his men, these injuries come back to hot Hancock over and over again. In fact, it's in his wounding at Gettysburg
that the 2nd core is leaderless for a while, and Warren is brought in to command the 2nd corps for a while, which ultimately leads to him being promoted to his command to the 5th corps. So these so you have the the Warren, the the cautious thinker, you've Hancock, you know, the charismatic leader, the lion in a sense. And then you bring in the old guy. This is major general John Sedgwick,
and he's from Connecticut and commander of the 6th Corps. And his headquarters is really Brandy Station, rearguard, the Rabahonic River. And so he's got all the places between
the back end. So if the confederates came across the river and either flank, he's the rearguard. He keeps them from routing them or coming straight into to Culpepper or or taking out meats head orders at Brandy Station. That's where he's at. Fleetwood Hill is really where a lot of his soldiers are are at as well. So you have Sedgwick His reputation as a fighter and loved by his soldiers,
this man from Connecticut. They called him uncle John, and he was another guy who just really wasn't afraid to jump into the fight. And he is having a conflict of conscience in a sense. Because this is a guy who was very much on the side of General McKellen back in the early days of the civil war, the Peninsula campaign.
And he and McKesson didn't really get along on some of the strategic elements of the of the combat, and he started questioning McKesson's leadership. On Michaela making a lot of political decisions rather than military ones that would sacrifice men. He didn't really see how politics played in that. And he was not a fan of politics. Seeing politics come into play in the military environment was not his thing. He was a man of duty. Even if he didn't like the orders, he would do what he was told. He was married to the military, and he's an older man. This was something that Mead really respected about him. Because this is the guy who did what he was told. And unfortunately,
he was held in reserve at Gettysburg from the entire battle. So he's got these rough edges around some of the fights before Gettysburg. And then he doesn't really get to fight. So unlike the other 2 core commanders who are the heroes of Gettysburg and go along with me, Sedgwick didn't really get to prove himself, but he does fit Grant's style. He likes to attack. He's definitely a very
motivated general on He's not afraid of the enemy in that sense, is that if this is what needs to get done, I will do it. I will do what needs to get done. And so this is the 3 elements, the 3 personalities surrounding mead. In his tactical thinking of what he's going to do come the springtime or when Granti signs its time to go, to attack Lee to the south, these 3 commanders. The thinker, the charismatic leader, and the fighter, you'll do with his told.
He won't like it, or he'll fight you all the way the decisions is made. But once the decision is made, Sedgwick is on board. Where, Hancock, We'll do what needs to get done, but he's gonna do it from the front. And Warren is probably going to agree with you and and maybe change the plan in the field when he sees something better or sees something change. But that's not just the only thing that Mead has a 10 with because that's his tactical command of the army of the Potomac.
Grant brings in 2 other generals that Mead doesn't have control over. And this will cause problems later. 1 of them of course is general major general, Phil Sheridan. This is a guy from Albany, New York. He's gonna be put directly in charge of the cavalry corps. Now, he won't report to Mead. He'll report directly to Grant, and he's a western general. So already he's suspect because here comes grants boys in a sense to help tell us eastern guys how to do things. It's not met very well.
The filtration hasn't quite arrived yet. But he will be arriving. And this is already a problem that Mead has about losing control of the cavalry. Remember, Grant is a horse guy. He loves horses. He's
excelled at West Point in in Calvary tactics and horsemanship. In fact, he set their record for the high jump in a horse. That wasn't broken for 25 years after he said it. So it's 1 of those things where the horse soldier is being controlled by Grant and the foot soldier is being controlled by Mead. This is gonna cause some conflict later. So put a pin in that. We'll we'll come back to this. The other guy is major general Ambers Burnside.
And for whatever you think about the military, Burnside is the old school, if there is an old school of military, of aristocrat, aristocracy, Burnside is that guy. He's in charge what's called the 9th course. This independent core that was being used to raid around
the Chesapeake and around the Atlantic Coast. He he oh, he wants to think about his his majors don't reimburse Burnside. He's almost He's like a marine in the sense because he's done so many naval activities. He understands the navy workings. But he has this really unfortunate incident in the battle of Fredericksburg,
where because of the way they're shoot in and thinking that the confederates were on a flank on either side, the list, wave after wave attack Mary Heights. And Mary's Heights sits on the high point of Fredericksburg,
where the confederates just rained fire down on his units, and they were decimated there. Burnside has to live with that. He has to live with that problem. Plus, he was also the general chief at that time that got taken from him. He's kind of been tossed around. No 1 really likes him. There's a lot of bad blood between a lot of these generals, and Lincoln has connected him to Grant. But whether Grant liked it or not. And this is a guy from Indiana, and his first assignment was in Rhode Island where he was first married and this really reset down his roots. So he's the strange Indiana Rhode Island guy. And he has this new core in a sense, the 9th course, independent course, roughly about 20,000 troops. But what Burnside has, which not a lot of the other units really have yet, is he's got 4 divisions
1 of those divisions is comprised completely of US colored troops or USCT. He has roughly 9000 soldiers made up entirely of regiments of Black Freeman, runaway slaves, liberated slaves. Now at this point, they're led by white officers, but there's 9000 black soldiers. Being directly controlled by Grant.
It's this other core that he now has this element to use as he sees fit to plug in holes or gaps or to do things where the army of the Potomac doesn't have to worry about certain things. And 1 of those things is reinforcing and guarding the supply line. Grant's gonna specifically use the 9th Corps to control the Orange Alexandria railroad defenses and his supply line defenses going forward in the overland campaign. Probably think it's like, why does Grant get this senior general
off to the side? Then Sheridan kinda makes sense in a sense in a way because it allows him to add some western influence to the Eastern Army. But Burnside is a definite hardcore Eastern style general. Why not have him connected to me than the rest of the army? Well, the problem has to do with seniority. We we talked about this before, where seniority in the military has its problems.
And 1 of those is that Burnside is way senior to me. And Grant didn't really think that would work well. They have Burnside report to me because Burnside is a pain in the butt. He's that kind of guy that just does not play nice with others. He's very opinionated. He's boisterous.
He does not have the fine, refined edges to get along with people. In Grant, in Mead, and Burnside together, I mean, just it just was good not going to be a good mix. So Grant decides that Burnside worked more directly to him, in which case the 9th core is more or less put into reserve. This allows all 3 cores, the 2nd, the 5th, and the 6th to be utilized for offensive operations. And the 9th core to be utilized as the Brearguard and supply defenders.
And the cavalry, under grant, to be used as reconnaissance and the ability to to look out beyond the army b v i's and ears of the army beyond. That's how the army the Potomac is set up at this point in the war. Of course, this doesn't define a lot of these relationships because Grant's still the outsider.
So while he realizes that he's the new guy in the block, He goes and brings in Sheridan that irks them a little bit, and then here comes Burnside who's also going to be directly to Grant. So Mead and grant have this very bizarre organization. Because, again, it's not just the army of the Potomac, it's now the US army. So now we're doing combined arms or or even doing coordinated joint operations because the Navy gets involved in this at some point as well. And there's a big reason
why this is taking place. Why this type of weird organization kind of happens? And it's because the army of the atomic has a bad reputation. And it has to do with the loss of the peninsula
under McKellen, has to do the loss of Frederick Brewery under Burnside, has to do the loss of chance over under Hooker. The army of the atomic has not had a good record when it comes to winning. They're a little broken in sense. Now Mead was loved by Americans because of Gettysburg, but he was reviled by Washington politicians because he couldn't do anything afterwards.
He's too slow. Didn't wasn't aggressive enough. Waiting for permission or needed supplies or needed more men. And the biggest problem with the army the Potomac came from secretary of war Edward Stanton. He really disliked the armpitomic mainly because McKellan, George McKellan and Edwin Stanton used to be good friends, but at some point, that became a toxic relationship upon itself. Now they used to call George McKellen Little Mac or Little Napoleon.
And he still had friends and influence with the army of Potomac. And this is a problem. This is a problem for the officers in the Eastern Theatre with this connection to Magellan. And Magellan had what they call the case of the slows. Lincoln used to say about Magellan. Hey, if you're not using the army of the Potomac, can I borrow it for a while? Because he would just refuse to move until he was all the way ready. In fact, Warren is in the Hancock.
And me and those all seem to be cut from that same cloth. So you kind of get some understanding of the way they think. I mean, that philosophy seems to work within that. Because they all understood that what they all came from McKellan's way of thinking. And Washington felt the the Peninsula campaign under McKellan
failed because of McCullen, where McCullen thought the Peninsula campaign failed because the politicians got involved. Well, the Eastern Theatre thinks the same way. And now that Magellan has joined the Copperheads and running as a democratic as Lincoln in 1864,
that's even more of this angst. That Lincoln put a western general in charge of the armpit atomic. Is it politicians meddling with the army again? Because the senior officers in the army all went to West Point with McKellen. They all received their first appointments in the army of Potomac under McKellan. They all served under George McKellan in the potential campaign and other battles. They were brigade commanders under George McKellan. They are sympathetic
to McKellan, who's running against the Lincoln in the 64 election. Makes you wonder, Who do you vote him for? Because they believe that McKesson would have succeeded if these politicians had gotten the way. Now they're getting in the way again. Is that gonna lead to success? And this makes their first impressions of Grant as the western or the outsider, appointed by the president, look like meddling. And Grant realizes this. He sees the writing on the wall what this means.
He's been in those situations before. He understands that. But he's really seeing the way the easterners view him. And he needs to act. He needs to act to repair and buffer this relationship can arm the atomic in Washington. He needs to teach the army how to conduct joint operations and not have all this rivalry. He needs them to understand that politics does play a role in military operations in 18 64. But this is not an easy task
because it not just extends from the officers involved in the army, the Potomac extends to the men as well. And they have very mixed feelings about grammar. These are people from Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut. Some of these people are not big fans of Western generals. They're not impressed.
Like, well, the 1 officer saying that when he saw Grant riding a horse, it looked like a sack of potatoes riding a horse. How can this guy be a horseman? He looks like he's never ridden a horse before. Used to call them useless Grant because they have all these operations going on and nothing happens. Grant shows up and nothing happens and nothing happens and nothing happens. So they weren't very impressed. They didn't really see him as an element of greatness.
Instead, they said, it looks like a farmer. How is this a general? How is this little tenant general? A rank not held since George Washington. How is this farmer, our boss now? And, of course, general Mead is, you know, although he looks like a wrinkled turtle, He's more intelligent looking. He's more stylized. He's got the uniform ironed. He's got the nice cutramence of military decoration.
Grant doesn't do any of this stuff. In fact, I I wonder in hearing some of the of the descriptions of Grant, if he even washes his coat or his boots, Maybe maybe not. He looks like he is living in his clothes, and he's living in the dirt. Because Grant didn't care about that stuff. There's that great Murphy's law that says, a inspection ready unit never survives combat. And a combat ready unit never survives inspection. Grant is that guy,
but not all of them think this way. They remember McKellen. They remember McKellen, his pompousness, and his egotistical nature. A lot like, you know, like, warner's almost got many McKellen in a sense. But they remember that. The reason they called him Little Mac or Little Napoleon, because he had that era of I am the smartest man in the room. You all need to battle before me thing. They remember that. They get Grant. Grant's all about business. He's not a man of many words. He listens.
Maybe something that Michaela never did. Grant listens. He asked them very direct questions. He said to inspire confidence in the way, just the way he talks to the kind of questions he's asking, not asking dumb questions. He's asking very pointed questions, specific questions about readiness, about tactics, about how things work within this particular military.
He's already won over the cavalry men who knows how to handle a horse. Although they say that the sack of potato is on a horse, when he gets to the cavalry guys, They see different. They know what Grant is capable of. There is a nice antidote that when he becomes president later on in life that he gets a speeding ticket in Washington DC because he's racing horses through the city. He's been a staunch
horseman his whole life and knows how to handle a horse. Since an added horse is no slouch of a horse either in the caliber, guys see that. They see it's almost like the way you beat somebody. If you see somebody how they treat their dog, better than they treat other people. Grant's like that always treats his horse better than he treats other people in a sense, but he doesn't really treat people. With any indifference. He's just a quiet guy.
Although he's not polished, some people like that. Some people like the fact that he's not this. This flamboyant and polished general. They like the fact that he's like a regular guy. And so there's this a lot of anticipation that he showed up. He's a different kind of general. He's inspiring confidence and that he's actually making them think, oh my gosh. They've really decided to go outside the box on this. This is not the same old Washington
East turn general from Westpoint showing up to to lead us to another defeat. This guy's very different. Not only is it very different. He acts different. He talks different. Everything about him makes them curious to the point where they think maybe the war can be over. Maybe this new way of thinking can work. And this is an interesting point in the war where there's a lot of people in the army of the Potomac who are almost at their 3 year enlistment point where they're done. They can get out.
And just before the orderly campaign, there's a huge push to get people to reenlist. A lot of them don't. But it said about 27,000 of them actually reenlist during the overlay campaign. So you think about it, an army of a hundred thousand people
Now almost 30% realist. That's not bad. Why is that? Because grand arrives, things start to go into motion. Activity starts to happen. Officers start to be more energetic about things going on. They start preparing their troops for certain things. Things start to leak out, mouths start to talk, even though there's upset going on with a lot of operational security. There's a lot of talking going on. People understand that things are about to happen.
And then in the next month, grant writes on April 26 1964. Quote, the army of the Potomac is in splendid condition and evidently feels like whipping somebody. I feel much better with this command that I did before seeing it. He sees it too. He sees that these soldiers want a win. They don't like being losers. They don't like the fact that some of these mega losses in the civil war are because of them. They don't want that reputation anymore. They want it changed.
There is a Sun Sue quote that says, better to have a lion in charge of an army of deer. Than to have a deer in charge on army of lions. And although the army of the Potomac is aren't they aren't really dear, they haven't really been led by any lions. Here comes Grant. He's humble, he listens, he's very direct, and they're starting to think, This is the thing that we've been waiting for. This is the change that we didn't see in the previous commands.
Maybe the war can be won. Maybe we can do this. Maybe this is our time. This is Providence. And that is the influence that General Grant gives to this army. Within 8 weeks of working and moving inside the encampments around Culpepper. He sees this army is in splendid condition. And it evidently feels like whipping somebody. And he's really inspired by that.
And before he didn't think that because he heard and knew all the things about army the Potomac before this point. And now he's been here. He's talked to these men. He's seen these officers. He's seen their characters. He looked them in the eye and understands what they are willing to do, and he's inspired. He's more confident he's ever been before.
And I think at this point, remember this April 26th, so things are out to cook off within the next week or so, he's starting to see that this army could be the instrument of the confederacy's destruction. In the next episode of War Yankee, we're gonna go deep into the plan that Mead and Grant will come cocked. And then get them ready to cross that river
to launch the army of Potomac across the Rapadhan river and into the T. Of Robert E Lee's forces and the army of Northern Virginia. So I hope you can join me for that 1. It's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun because I love the planning part of this the pieces that go into, it's very interesting to understand how the overland campaign was cooked off, and they removed so many men and so many supplies across that river.
Thank you for joining me for War Yankee Overland. My American Civil War History Podcast created by me. Kyle in Bond and produced by Agafod. I hope you've enjoyed me again as I continue to follow the civil war history hiding in my own backyard. Follow the Overland campaign's march to petersburg@wargainkey.com.