19

1861 CIVIL WAR Date Autograph Letter Signed ULYSSES S. GRANT, 18th President

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:20,000.00 USD Estimated At:20,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
1861 CIVIL WAR Date Autograph Letter Signed ULYSSES S. GRANT, 18th President
Autographs
Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant Orders Seizing a Bank in order to Keep Its Money Safe From the Confederates!
ULYSSES S. GRANT (1822-1885). Eighteenth President of the United States, First “Lieutenant-General” since George Washington, and Major General (July 4, 1863), he led the Union Armies to victory in the last years of the American Civil War.
August 25, 1861-Dated Civil War, Extraordinary Content Autograph Letter Signed, “U. S. Grant - Brig. Gen. Com.” 1 page, measuring 8” x 12.5” from “Head Quarters, Jeff City, M(issouri),” Very Fine. This Field Order Letter is Handwritten to “Capt. R.W. Chitwood,” in command of the “C. H. Guards” (either company “C.” likely standing in meaning for the: “(City) Home Guards.” There are a few trivial fold intersection splits and wear holes from actual battlefield conditions, yet well written and easily readable in bold brown crisp ink. Here, General Grant, who had received his official Commission as Brigadier General barely three weeks prior, writes, in full:

“Sir: --- In taking charge of the expedition now about starting out you will follow these instructions.

You will march your men through the Country in an orderly manner. Allow no indiscriminate plundering by your men - but everything taken must be by your direction, by persons detailed for the particular purpose, keeping an account of what taken, from whom, its value &c.

Arrests will not be made except for good reasons. A few leading and prominent secessionists may be carried along however as hostages, and released before arriving here. Property which you may know to have been used for the purpose of aiding the Rebel Cause will be taken whether you require it or not. What you require for the subsistence of your men and horses must be furnished by people of secession sentiments, and accounted for as stated above. No receipts are to be given unless you find it necessary to get supplies from friends.

--- (Signed) U.S. Grant, Brig Gen. Com.”

Grant fully recalls this action in his Memoirs, where he writes: “I had been at Jefferson City but a few days when I was directed from department headquarters to fit out an expedition to Lexington, Booneville and Chillicothe, in order to take from the banks in those small cities all the funds they had and send them to St. Louis. The western army had not yet been supplied with transportation. It became necessary therefore to press in to service teams belonging to sympathizers with the rebellion or to hire those of Union men.”

The Missouri theater in the opening phase of the war was chaotic. Roaming partisan bands operated as criminal gangs under dubious authority. Regular Confederate and Union forces were scattered throughout the state, poorly coordinated and sloppily organized. Grant was struck by the slack discipline of the militia home guard in Jefferson City. He was even more dismayed by the “ad hoc” ways in which officers were forming new regiments, simply by making up their own terms of enlistment, and doling out military commissions in a ragged manner. The Union Army in General needed to be brought under better discipline and tighter control. It was for that very reason that President Abraham Lincoln had just put through a promotion list at the end of July, handing out General's stars to junior officers, who had remained loyal throughout the secession frenzy. Lincoln turned to returning veterans, like Grant.

Excellent, important historic content in this very early Civil War Letter from Ulysses S. Grant. Grant’s implied tone in this Letter foreshadows both his concept of “Total War” which he later developed to skillfully bring the Confederacy to its knees. Yet Grant provided a prudent restraint in taking property and sustenance from ordinary citizens to fuel his Army.
Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the U.S. (1869-1877), was promoted to the rank of Major General (July 4, 1863). In March of 1864, Abraham Lincoln promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant General in command of all the armies of the United States. He received surrender of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, marking the end of the American Civil War.