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

‘ [475] to Sheridan should start at once, and go down the Boydton road.’ This was very different from the instructions issued by Meade ten minutes before. The officer who brought the news from Sheridan had missed his way, and stopped at Meade's headquar-ters for a guide, and at 7.30 P. M., before the receipt of Grant's directions, Meade sent word to Warren: ‘Dispatch from General Sheridan says he was forced back to Dinwiddie court-house by a strong force of cavalry, supported by infantry. This leaves your rear and that of the Second corps on the Boydton plank road open, and will require great vigilance on your part. If you have sent the brigade down the Boydton plank, it should not go further than Gravelly run, as I don't think it will render any service but to protect your rear.’

These orders were indeed in accordance with the tenor of Grant's earlier dispatches before he knew of Sheridan's danger. So long as he had no fears for the cavalry, the general-in-chief simply desired to protect Warren against an intervention of the enemy between his left and Dinwiddie; but the moment he learned that Sheridan was opposed by infantry as well as horse, and had been badly handled by superior numbers, he changed the entire character of his orders. With his invariable instinct in an emergency, he determined to convert the defence into an offensive movement, and ordered an entire division at once to Sheridan. The method of many commanders is first of all to protect themselves, and then to injure the enemy; but Grant's impulse always was to strike first, and he did it so quickly that the blow was sometimes delivered before his judgment was exercised; but it always