Grant has come East to take up his last command
And the grand command of the armies.
It is five years
Since he sat, with a glass, by the stove in a country store,
A stumpy, mute man in a faded Army overcoat,
The eldest-born of the Grants but the family-failure,
Now, for a week, he shines in the full array
Of gold cord and black-feathered hat and superb blue coat,
As he talks with the trim, well-tailored Eastern men.
It is his only moment of such parade.
When the fighting starts, he is chewing a dead cigar
With only the battered stars to show the rank
On the shoulderstraps of the private’s uniform.
Stephen Vincent Benet, John Brown’s Body
Fighting was not resumed at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 7, 1864. The Confederates had fortified their positions and further Union assaults would have been fruitless. Veteran Union troops knew what was going to happen next. The latest offensive under the latest General had been stopped, with over 17,000 casualties, the same as at the Union defeat at Chancellorsville the year before. The army would retire north for a period of rest and recuperation before trying again. Likely Grant would be removed and a new General brought in to try his luck. The Union troops had been through this many times before over the past three years.
The troops marched from the field under cover of night and came to the crossroads at the Wilderness Tavern. They could see Grant on a horse. The road leading north lay before them. They turned on to the Brock Road and headed south. It took a moment to register and then cheers began to erupt for Grant. They weren’t beaten after all! They were going to steal a march on Bobby Lee! Grant had broken the cycle of advance and retreat. No battle, no matter how hard fought, was going to stop his advance. Much hard fighting remained, but that night Grant won the Civil War.
One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go any where, or to do anything, not to turn back, or stop until the thing intended was accomplished. I have frequently started to go to places where I had never been and to which I did not know the way, depending upon making inquiries on the road, and if I got past the place without knowing it, instead of turning back, I would go on until a road was found turning in the right direction, take that, and come in by the other side.
Ulysses S. Grant
