John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

Dana was greatly disappointed at the outcome. He had great confidence in Grant's skill and energy, and felt that with the forces at his disposal he could have cleaned up Alabama in three months. But this was not to be. It will be remembered that Grant, instead, went to Knoxville, where he arrived on the last day of the year. After four days, which he spent in studying the situation and in giving detailed instructions for the campaign against Longstreet, he left for Nashville. The entire journey, which took seven days, was made on horseback from Moundsville, through Cumberland Gap, Barboursville, London, and Frankfort, to Lexington. The journey from Lexington through Louisville to Nashville was made by rail. Grant's headquarters were established at the last-mentioned place about the middle of January, 1864, and remained there till he was called East to take general command of all the National armies.

Immediately after the holidays Dana returned to the War Department, where he not only participated in the multifarious duties connected with the administration and maintenance of the army, but for the first time had an opportunity to observe and study the great secretary as he showed himself in the midst of his daily and nightly work. On January 11, 1864, he wrote to me from his desk in the department. Omitting purely personal passages, the letter runs as follows:

... Yesterday I had the happiness of sending the general a despatch much more important because more decisive than that referred to in yours of the 24th.... The general is authorized to go ahead according to his own judgment.

There are very great complaints here in the quartermaster-general's office respecting the impossibility of getting supplies for General Banks down the Mississippi. Coal, hay, horses — everything is seized at Memphis,Vicksburg, or Natchez. One cargo of one hundred and twenty-five horses arrived at