U. S. Grant to Henry Halleck, re: the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg

"It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war. Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have."

U. S. Grant, re: Gen. John C. Frémont

"He sat in a room in full uniform with his maps before him. When you went in he would point out one line or another in a mysterious manner, never asking you to take a seat. You left without the least idea of what he meant or what he wanted you to do."

Sherman to Grant, 9 Oct 1864

"I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!"

Grant to Sherman, 4 April 1864

"You I propose to move against Johnston's army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources."

Sherman to Grant, 10 April 1864

"I will not let side issues draw me off from your main plans in which I am to knock Jos. Johnston, and to do as much damage to the resources of the enemy as possible."

The Burnet House, Cincinnati

In mid-March 1864 Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman met in "Parlor A" of Cincinnati's Burnet House. They spread out their war maps and devised the strategy that resulted in the devastation of Georgia and South Carolina.
"Yonder began the campaign," Sherman was to say a quarter century later, standing before the hotel on the occasion of a visit to the Ohio city. "He was to go for Lee and I was to go for Joe Johnston. That was his plan. No routes prescribed.... It was the beginning of the end as Grant and I foresaw right here."
Parlor A became a shrine, of sorts, and for many years the Sons of Union Veterans held their meetings in it until around 1926, when the building was torn down for new development.

Grant to Sherman, March 1864

Nashville, Tennessee
March 4, 1864

DEAR SHERMAN :

The bill reviving the grade of lieutenant-general in the army has become a law, and my name has been sent to the Senate for the place. I now receive orders to report at Washington immediately, in person, which indicates either a confirmation or a likelihood of confirmation.

I start in the morning to comply with the order, but I shall say very distinctly on my arrival there that I shall accept no appointment which will require me to make that city my headquarters. This, however, is not what I started out to write about.

While I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least getting the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I how much of this success is due to the energy and skill of those whom it has been my good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me.

There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers ; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do. I feel all the gratitude this letter would express ; giving it the most flattering construction.

The word “you” I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also. I should write to him, and will some day, but, starting in the morning, I do not know that I will find time just now.

Your friend,

U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.

Gen. Sherman, re: Maj. Gen. Grant

"I am a much brighter man than Grant; I can see things much quicker than he can, and know more about books than he does, but I'll tell you where he beats me, and where he beats the world: he don't care a cent for what he can't see the enemy doing, but it scares me like hell!"

Lee's Spotsylvania line

from The Civil War, Vol. III, by Shelby Foote, Random House, 1974, p. 204:

Studded with guns at critical points throughout its convex three-mile length, Lee's Spotsylvania line was constructed, Meade's chief of staff declared, "in a manner unknown to European warfare, and indeed, in a manner new to warfare in this country." Actually, it was not so much the novelty of the individual engineering techniques that made this log-and-dirt barrier so forbidding; it was the combination of them into a single construction of interlocking parts, the canny use of natural features of the terrain, and the speed with which the butternut veterans, familiar by now with the fury of Grant's assaults, had accomplished their intricate task. Traverses zigzagged to provide cover against enfilade fire from artillery, and head logs, chocked a few inches above the hard-packed spoil on the enemy side of the trench, afforded riflemen a protected slit through which they could take unruffled aim at whatever came their way.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, May 1864:

"I am heartily tired of hearing what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land on our rear and on both our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."