Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

‘ [363] all. I should emphatically decline any commission calculated to bring us into rivalry; and I ask you to advise all your friends in Congress to this effect, especially Mr. Washburne. I doubt if men in Congress fully realize that you and I are honest in our professions of want of ambition. I know I feel none, and to-day will gladly surrender my position and influence to any other who is better able to wield the power. The flurry attending my recent success will soon blow over, and give place to new developments.’

It would be difficult to match this in disinterrestedness, but Grant replied: ‘I have received your very kind letter, in which you say you would decline, or are opposed to, promotion. No one would be more pleased at your advancement than I; and, if you should be placed in my position, and I put subordinate, it would not change our relations in the least. I would make the same exertions to support you that you have ever done to support me, and I would do all in my power to make our cause win.’ These were not mere professions on either side. They were pledges made in the view of very possible contingencies. And they would have been fulfilled.

But Sherman's prediction was verified. The excitement which his success had occasioned subsided, and no serious attempt was made to elevate him above the grade of major-general.

Grant's plans at this time assumed a grander and more comprehensive character than at any other epoch of the war. The concentration of his armies went on from the most distant quarters, and cooperative movements were directed on a scale hitherto