alry you deem necessary to protect
the left, and hold such positions as you deem necessary for that
purpose, and send the remainder back to Humphrey's Station where they
can get hay and grain. Fifty wagons loaded with forage will be sent
to you in the morning. Send an officer back to direct the wagons
back to where you want them. Report to me the cavalry you will leave
back, and the position you will occupy. Could not your cavalry go
back by the way of Stony Creek depot and destroy or capture the store
of supplies there?

"U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-General."

When I had read and pondered this, I determined to ride over to
General Grant's headquarters on Gravelly Run, and get a clear idea of
what it was proposed to do, for it seemed to me that a suspension of
operations would be a serious mistake. Mounting a powerful gray
pacing horse called Breckenridge (from its capture from one of
Breckenridge's staff-officers at Missionary Ridge), and that I knew
would carry me through the mud, I set out accompanied by my Assistant
Adjutant-General, Colonel Frederick C. Newhall, and an escort of
about ten or fifteen men. At first we rode north up the Boydton
plank-road, and coming upon our infantry pickets from a direction
where the enemy was expected to appear, they began to fire upon us,
but seeing from our actions that we were friends, they ceased, and
permitted us to pass the outposts. We then struggled on in a
northeasterly direction across-country, till we struck the Vaughn
road. This carried us to army headquarters, which were established
south of Gravelly Run in an old cornfield. I rode to within a few
yards of the front of General Grant's tent, my horse plunging at
every step almost to his knees in the mud, and dismounted near a
camp-fire, apparently a general one, for all the staff-officers were
standing around it on boards and rails placed here and there to keep
them from sinking into the mire.

Going directly to General Grant's tent, I found him and Rawlins
talking over the question of suspending operations till the weather
should improve. No orders about the matter had been issued yet,
except the despatch to me, and Rawlins, being strongly opposed to the
proposition, was frankly expostulating with General Grant, who, after
greeting me, remarked, in his quiet way: "Well, Rawlins, I think you
had better take command." Seeing that there was a difference up
between Rawlins and his chief, I made the excuse of bein