Camp near Petersburg, Oct. 7th.
It lacks nine days of four months since I first beheld, through sulphurous smoke and leaden hail, the tall spires of Petersburg. It was the time the Ninth Corps made their first charge and were repulsed. Since that time we have made several advances— always by the left flank—until now we extend from river to river around the city. But we are not discouraged. In fact, we were never one-half so confident as now. We are fulfilling, to the letter, the old injunction to “make haste slowly.” Experience tells us the taking of a city, a victory where the enemy, “runs away and lives to fight another day,” only prolongs the contest. Their armies must be destroyed. Grant has hit upon the right plan. What if Copperheads do say “Grant cannot take Petersburg.” We know better. His operations here are but part of a plan that is literally destroying Lee’s army. It embraces Butler, on the James; Sheridan, in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman, in Georgia. All are acting in concert, controlled by one master spirit, who rules and guides the whole.
For a time I feared Grant had met his match in Lee. But, as the plot thickens and the current of events brings out and develops his deep-laid plans, I see the hoary-headed traitor struggling with desperate but futile energy to disengage himself from the toils of his relentless foe. In speaking of Grant last spring I said, “I suspend judgment for the present.” Since that time he has exhibited qualities that prove him to be, with scarcely a rival, the military genius of the age. We talk of Sherman’s campaign in Georgia; of Grant’s campaign in Virginia; of Sheridan in the Valley; of Mobile and Charleston. There has been but one campaign, and that is Grant’s campaign against the rebellion. The whole—north, south, east and west—had been guided and directed, under God, by his far-seeing mind. I believe we have at last found the man who is capable of directing the energies of this country, and of leading us on to victory and peace.
