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Preface
The introduction that follows from
General Frederick Dent Grant is a simple statement of the large movements during the last year of the war in mass.
In it the reader will find a concise summation of what follows in detail throughout the chapters of Volume III.
It is amazing to the non-military reader to find how simple was the direct cause for the tremendous results in the last year of the
Civil War. It was the unification of the
Federal army under
Ulysses S. Grant.
His son, in the pages that follow, repeats the businesslike agreement with
President Lincoln which made possible the wielding of all the
Union armies as one mighty weapon.
The structure of Volume II reflects the
Civil War situation thus changed in May, 1864.
No longer were battles to be fought here and there unrelated; but a definite movement was made by “Grant Versus
Lee” on the 4th of May, accompanied by “the simultaneous movements” of
Butler,
Sherman, and
Sigel — all under the absolute control of the man who kept his headquarters near those of
Meade,
Commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Against such concentrated strokes the enfeebled Confederacy could not stand.
Only the utter courage of leaders and soldiers innately brave, who were fighting for a cause they felt meant home no less than principle, prolonged the struggle during the tragic year ending with May, 1865.
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