Sold – Battle Letter of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to Gen. George G. Meade, Amidst the Fight For Control of the Crucial Weldon Railroad at Petersburg

"Do you not think it likely the enemy are preparing for a heavy attack on Warren this afternoon?"

Newly appointed by President Lincoln to lead all the Union armies, Grant developed a strategy to defeat the Confederacy by placing the Army of the Potomac (under the command of Gen. George G. Meade) between the rebel capital of Richmond and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. On 4 May, Grant’s forces crossed the Rapidan River and started the campaign. Lee attacked while Grant’s men were still in a tangled forest area called the Wilderness, and the battle there was a major one. At its end, Grant did not retreat back to his camp to recover, but instead moved southeast towards Spotsylvania Court House, in an attempt to get past Lee’s right wing. Lee moved in time to prevent Grant from seizing the road junction at Spotsylvania. Fighting continued around Spotsylvania from May 8-21 and was inconclusive. From there, Grant continued his movement to the southeast, around Lee’s right. On June 3, his disasterous attack on Lee’s dug-in army ended Grant’s hopes to take Richmond directly.

Next Grant focused on Petersburg, 25 miles due south. Confederate supply lines passed through there, where three railroads met (The Norfolk & Petersburg, Petersburg & Weldon and South Side). If Grant could cut these railroads, then Lee would have to abandon Richmond. On June 14 the Army of the Potomac crossed the James River northeast of Petersburg on a pontoon bridge over 2,000 feet long, and moved towards that city. Lee was fooled by this move and did not move south until June 18, by which time Grant’s entire army had been moved south of the James. After four days of combat with no success Grant began siege operations.

So Lee ended up in Petersburg with the Appomattox River (a tribuary of the James) protecting his back, and surrounding the city below the river he built two lines of works that covered the entire area. Grant sent Gen. Benjamin Butler and his Army of the James back north towards Richmond, to launch diversionary attacks there and siphon off some of Lee’s forces to drain him at Petersburg. Meade and the Army of the Potomac built works from the river northeast of Petersburg down to south of the city, as far as they could go. The Confederates controlled all the ground from Grant’s southern tip west up to the river. Siege conditions prevailed from June 1864 to virtually the war’s end. Grant’s main objective during the ten-month Siege of Petersburg was to extend his lines south and west to cut Lee’s railroad links and encircle him at the same time. Here was Lee’s problem: he was stuck in Petersburg and every Union success forced him to extend his lines. Every time he had to extend, those lines became thinner.

In the summer of 1864, the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad that ran from Petersburg southeast was in Union hands, and Grant's thrust was toward the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad that ran due south. If he could cut the Weldon, only one lifeline in Petersburg would remain open to the Confederates, a rail link that ran west. The Battle of Weldon Railroad (also called Globe Tavern) took place from August 18–21, 1864. Union General Gouverneur K. Warren led his Fifth Corps west from the Union lines located south of Petersburg on August 18. His lead division reached the railroad around Globe Tavern about 9:00 in the morning and began to destroy the tracks, opposed only by a small body of cavalry. The Confederates sent three infantry brigades early in the afternoon to dislodge Warren, and they managed to halt Warren's advance up the railroad; however, they could not drive him away. Warren deployed his entire corps to cover the railroad, leaving a gap between his right flank and the established Union lines to the east. Into that gap on August 19 plunged three Confederate brigades, while more Confederates pressed Warren's front. The Confederates made progress, but Union reinforcements came up and halted it, so although Lee had won a victory of sorts, he fell short of recovering the critical railroad. On the 20th Confederate generals P.G.T. Beauregard and A. P. Hill prepared for a major attack to accomplish that goal, providing Warren the opportunity to adopt a stronger defensive posture. The Confederate attack began on the morning of August 21 and it met with disaster. By noon the Confederates were repulsed everywhere and soon fell back to their main line of defense.

As the Confederates fell back, Grant wrote this Autograph Letter Signed, on his Head Quarters Armies of the United States letterhead, City Point, Va., August 21, 1864, 1:10 pm, to Meade, concerning the likelihood of and preparations for a possible renewed attack in the afternoon. “Do you not think it likely the enemy are preparing for a heavy attack on Warren this afternoon? If such is the case, would it not be better to move Hancock up to his support at once, and leave the slashing to troops that will be set free by Ord? I have directed Ord either to assault on his front or to extend and relieve Mott, favoring the latter. You will know very soon which he thinks best.”

Maj. George K. Leet was on Grant’s staff throughout the Civil War. The above letter was sent as a telegram, with Leet as a courier from Grant himself to the telegraph office. After seeing the telegram sent to Meade, Leet retained the original letter, and it has remained in his family for the ensuing 147 years. Knowledge of its text was known from copies, and the continued existence of the original has been unknown until now. We obtained it recently directly from Leet’s descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale.

The Confederates did not renew their attack, and as the sun set on the 21st, Warren was in full control of the Weldon Railroad’s access to Petersburg, and by the next day his troops had fortified the gap between the railroad and their old lines, making for a permament extension of them. As things now stood, Lee now had no choice but to offload his supplies from the crucial supply centers in North Carolina at the Weldon’s Stony Creek rail station, 18 miles south of Petersburg, then transfer them by wagon to Dinwiddie Court House and then up the Boydton Plank Road into Petersburg. This new, less-efficient supply line became the target of Grant's next offensive at Petersburg, as he sought to block off the Boydton Plank Road.