Returning promptly to Washington, Grant established his headquarters
with the Army of the Potomac, at Culpepper, and for about a month
actively pushed his military preparations. He seems at first to have
been impressed with a dread that the President might wish to influence
or control his plans. But the few interviews between them removed the
suspicion which reckless newspaper accusation had raised; and all doubt
on this point vanished, when, on the last day of April, Mr. Lincoln sent
him the following explicit letter:
"Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish
to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up
to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I
neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and,
pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints
upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of
our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less
likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is
anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me
know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain
you."
Grant's immediate reply confessed the groundlessness of his
apprehensions:
"From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country to the
present day, I have never had cause of complaint--have never expressed
or implied a complaint against the administration, or the Secretary of
War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously
prosecuting what appeared to me my duty.
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