Grant Takes Command: Union Victory Secured

Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to lieutenant general on March 9, 1864, a rank no American officer had held since George Washington, and placed in command of all Union armies. He established his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia the following day, and within two months, the war that had ground on for three years finally had a commander willing to use the Union's overwhelming advantages in manpower and industry to destroy the Confederacy through relentless, simultaneous pressure on every front. Grant's path to supreme command had been built on results. While commanders in the eastern theater lost or stalemated against Robert E. Lee, Grant had captured Fort Donelson, won at Shiloh despite being surprised, taken Vicksburg after a brilliant campaign that split the Confederacy in half, and broken the Confederate siege of Chattanooga. President Lincoln, who had cycled through commanders with increasing frustration, told an aide: "I can't spare this man. He fights." Congress revived the rank of lieutenant general specifically for Grant. Lincoln signed the commission and presented it at a White House ceremony on March 9, 1864. Grant chose not to command from Washington, where political interference had hampered every previous general-in-chief. Instead, he traveled to Brandy Station, Virginia, and attached himself to General George Meade's Army of the Potomac, effectively directing its operations while leaving Meade in nominal tactical command. Grant's strategy was unprecedented in its coordination. He ordered simultaneous advances across the entire theater of war. The Army of the Potomac would engage Lee in Virginia. William Tecumseh Sherman would drive from Chattanooga toward Atlanta. Benjamin Butler would advance up the James River toward Richmond. Franz Sigel would operate in the Shenandoah Valley. Nathaniel Banks would move against Mobile, Alabama. The Confederacy would be unable to shift reinforcements between theaters if every front was active simultaneously. The cost was staggering. The Overland Campaign, which began in May 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness, produced roughly 55,000 Union casualties in thirty days as Grant fought through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. Northern newspapers called him a "butcher." Grant continued advancing, crossing the James River and besieging Petersburg in June, beginning the nine-month siege that would end the war. Grant's appointment on March 10, 1864, marked the moment the Union found a general who understood that the war would be won not by capturing territory but by destroying armies.