General Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant

[81] it was uncertain whether we were going in the right direction or riding into the lines of the enemy. The guide was for a time suspected of treachery, but he was innocent of such a charge, and had only lost his bearings. Colonel Comstock rode on in advance, and hearing the sound of marching columns not far off on our right, came back with this news, and it was decided to return to the Brock road. General Grant at first demurred when it was proposed to turn back, and urged the guide to try and find some cross-road leading to the Brock road, to avoid retracing our steps. This was an instance of his marked aversion to turning back, which amounted almost to a superstition. He often put himself to the greatest personal inconvenience to avoid it. When he found he was not traveling in the direction he intended to take, he would try all sorts of cross-cuts, ford streams, and jump any number of fences to reach another road rather than go back and take a fresh start. If he had been in the place of the famous apprentice boy who wandered away from London, he would never have been thrice mayor of that city, for with him Bow Bells would have appealed to deaf ears when they chimed out, “Turn again, Whittington.” The enemy who encountered him never failed to feel the effect of this inborn prejudice against turning back. However, a slight retrograde movement became absolutely necessary in the present instance, and the general yielded to the force of circumstances. An orderly was stationed at the fork of the roads to indicate the right direction to Warren's troops when they should reach that point, and our party proceeded to Todd's tavern, reaching there soon after midnight. It was learned afterward that Anderson's (Longstreet's) corps had been marching parallel with us, and at a distance of less than a mile, so that the apprehension felt was well founded.